The executive chairman of Ripple, Chris Larsen, has criticized U.S. lawmakers for losing the blockchain arms race to china. The loss is in regards to the creation and design of the next generation of the global financial system.
Larsen was speaking at the LA Blockchain Summit Conference held on October 6 when he made his claims. He said that the United States was woefully behind in its preparation for a cryptocurrency-based next generation of a global financial system. This lagging behind and the country’s policy on regulation through enforcement might lead to Ripple’s consideration to leave the country and relocate to Europe or Asia.
Larsen claimed that the United States did not create an environment where the blockchain and digital currencies were welcome, farther advising that businesses or people who wanted to be in the space should consider going somewhere more friendly.
Larsen went ahead to say that in the tech cold war with China, the U.S. had fallen behind as China’s central government has outpaced American lawmakers by providing legislative clarity, allocating resources, building infrastructure, and fostering innovation in blockchain and emerging technologies such as AI, big data and surveillance.
China has made strides in creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC) which, according to Larsen will spread the yuan globally and undermine the dominance of the U.S. dollar in the international market. This is because there have been no efforts to embrace initiatives to digitize the dollar by the government.
China’s strides in this direction have been confirmed by the revelation by Fan Yi Fei, deputy governor at People’s Bank of China about the settlement of more than $162 million worth of domestic transactions through its Digital Currency, Electronic Payment (DCEP) pilot program.
According to Larsen, Chinese regulators have been more adaptive than those in the United States and said that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should understand the role blockchain plays in the technological arms race with china and stop pushing exclusionary policies made in 2017 against the initial coin offering (ICO) craze.
Larsen also touched on cryptocurrency mining, stating that China dominated in that sector too, as it controls proof of work mining and the Chinese miners were under the control of Chinese Community Party. He said that miners are masters who can rewrite history if they wanted, as well as block transactions.
Ripple’s executive chairman said that SEC’s policies favored proof-of-work protocols, consolidating China’s grip over the global crypto sector, and the U.S. loss.
Image courtesy of pixabay
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