Source: Wit Olszweski – Shutterstock
- Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has reiterated concerns that China could use the power of the miners to control and use Bitcoin to its advantage.
- He states that China has a huge technological advantage and could control the new financial system of the world.
In a recent interview at this year’s DC Fintech Week conference, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse again expressed concerns about China’s strong supremacy. In his opinion, China has the power to control the Bitcoin blockchain and exploit it to its advantage. He holds out the prospect of a rather unlikely scenario that has already been criticized by the community on several occasions.
China could control Bitcoin market and financial system of the future
According to Garlinghouse, Chinese President Xi Jingping would only have to lose one million US dollar in Bitcoin to give the Communist Party a reason to manipulate the Bitcoin blockchain and gain further benefits:
What happens if Premier Xi loses a million dollars in Bitcoin? You don’t think that the Chinese Communist Party has the opportunity to affect a change to the bitcoin blockchain and make a reverse premier’s easy a million-dollar loss of bitcoin that might have been hacked.
Although this seems rather unlikely, the Ripple CEO points to the obvious fact that China controls between 65% and 75% of the world’s hashrate from Bitcoin. Theoretically, China could take advantage of this centralization of mining and use the Bitcoin blockchain to its own advantage:
Bitcoin mining is 65 to 75 percent controlled by Chinese miners, and I think that it’s hard not to argue that the Chinese Communist Party does not have an opportunity to control it.
Already in August of this year the former co-founder of Ripple, Chris Larsen, had criticized the technological backwardness of the United States of America. China is already testing the digital yuan in large parts of the country and has also conducted an airdrop for selected citizens to promote adaptation and acceptance.
Above all, the still unclear regulatory situation in the USA is hampering rapid, timely progress. Larsen demands that the country’s politicians set a clear roadmap to ensure US leadership for a fair financial system of the future and for blockchain technology:
Just as the U.S. set clear, consistent policies that won the internet revolution, it must do the same with financial technology and blockchain.
China is currently winning the financial battle of the technological cold war. As a result, it’s more likely China will dictate important parts of a new global financial system, an unnecessary loss that we had all the tools to win.
XRP and CBDC’s can benefit from each other
Garlinghouse sees the further progress of central bank supported digital currencies (CBDC) as a catalyst for the cryptocurrency market. For both Ripple and XRP, CBDCs do not pose a threat, but rather an opportunity to further promote and drive adoption:
A digital currency from the central bank alone still does not solve the problem of settling a transaction, of clearing a payment between the Argentine peso and the Australian dollar.
As Crypto News Flash already reported, Ripple has already met with some representatives of important central banks in the past. However, no information has been disclosed so far. You can watch the whole interview here: