RIPPLE CEO : Cryptocurrency industry needs to work with regulators

The CEO of Ripple has said that the cryptocurrency industry needs to work with regulators, at a time when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has stated that crypto exchanges will be required to register with the agency.

Speaking on CNBC’s ‘Fast Money,’ Brad Garlinghouse, the chief of payment platform Ripple said:

It’s incredibly important that the entire industry recognizes that we have to work with the regulators, we have to work with the system. The blockchain revolution is happening from within the system it’s not going to happen from outside the system.

The San Francisco-based company is creating a network that will enable financial transactions to be processed faster. A number of banks are already utilising its platform to determine how its XRP token can be implemented for cross-border payments.

Garlinghouse’s remarks come at a time when the SEC said in a statement that platforms which trade digital assets that are considered securities are required to register with it. The statement read:

If a platform offers trading of digital assets that are securities and operates as an ‘exchange,’ as defined by the federal securities laws, then the platform must register with the SEC as a national securities exchange or be exempt from registration.

The SEC staff has concerns that many online trading platforms appear to investors as SEC-registered and regulated marketplaces when they are not. Many platforms refer to themselves as “exchanges,” which can give the misimpression to investors that they are regulated or meet the regulatory standards of a national securities exchange.

This follows after the agency issued a number of subpoenas in a bid to look into the initial coin offering (ICO) market and how they are structured at the end of February. At the time, bitcoin’s value fell from above $11,000 to $10,360. This latest news from the SEC saw the price of bitcoin drop below the $10,000 mark. At the time of publishing, it is trading at $9,429, according to CoinMarketCap.

Earlier this week, the price of the XRP token rose above $1 amid speculation that Coinbase was going to be adding the altcoin to the exchange. However, following heightened rumours the San Francisco exchange denied any new assets would be added to the exchange. XRP is currently trading at $0.839314.

In response, Garlinghouse said on CNBC that:

Coinbase will have to decide what they want to do and make the announcements that are appropriate for them.

It such an announcement did present itself, it would help to push the altcoin further into the mainstream.