Ripple CEO says Bitcoin tribalism is curtailing overall progress

• Brad Garlinghouse says there is fractured representation in the crypto industry 
• Garlinghouse also believes that there’ll be many winners with the explosion of crypto, not just one

Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse has gone in on Bitcoin maximalists over their role in impeding the growth of the larger crypto scene. Speaking recently during a fireside chat at the Paris Blockchain Week Summit, Garlinghouse told CNBC that this class of Bitcoin followers has created ‘tribalism’ and polarisation which aren’t good factors.

“Polarisation isn’t healthy in my judgement,” the Ripple CEO said. 

A boom is coming, and Garlinghouse is in for it

 Garlinghouse explained that he believes that the scene will eventually explode and is convinced that the wave will carry many along with it. In that line of thought, he revealed he is more than just a Bitcoin follower.

“I own Bitcoin, I own Ether, I own some others. I am an absolute believer that this industry is going to continue to thrive. All boats can rise,” Garlinghouse added.

The former Yahoo exec, who joined Ripple in 2017, observed that the current state of matters in the cryptocurrency scene is a reflection of the dot-com era that spanned the late 1990s to early 2000s. He said that the current market has products offering different utilities and seeking varying target markets, similar to that period.

“Yahoo could be successful and so could eBay… They are solving different problems. There are different use cases and different audiences, and different markets. I think a lot of those parallels exist today,” he noted.

The same battle, different fronts

The cryptocurrency industry in the US has, in recent months, seen some developments toward proper regulations. Ideally, these would mean collaborative efforts by experts in various facets of the space who would pool together to have a coordinated push.

However, as the Ripple executive noted, these hardcore Bitcoin advocates have defined their own “fractured representation” when it comes to lobbying policymakers on regulations.

“The lack of coordination in Washington, DC, amongst the crypto industry, I find to be shocking,” Garlinghouse added.

In the courts, Ripple is still fighting the SEC in a prolonged battle over the violation of securities regulations. The US regulator says Ripple conducted an illegal securities offering of $1.3 billion worth of XRP. Ripple, however, insists the XRP was offered as a virtual currency.

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