Ripple (XRP): The Biggest Risk They Face

 One of Ripple’s senior executives has stated that the biggest risk they face is regulation. This has been the case with cryptocurrency for some time, but now companies like Ripple are realising this and taking steps early to counter this. Ripple  are forming a large team to tackle the potential problems of  regulation, with the huge responsibility of ensuring that new customers  of the technology start-up don’t feel any detrimental effects due to  regulatory red-tape. 

“We are going around the world  making sure that for the next 1000 customers that we want to bring on,  which we think we can do in the next two years, that regulation is not  going to be an issue,” said Asheesh Birla, senior vice president of  product at Ripple. One of the regulatory issues already looming its head  is whether XRP, the financial asset strongly associated with Ripple, is  a security or not. The SEC has declared that Bitcoin and Ethereum are  not securities, due to how completely decentralised they are. But no  such clarification has been provided for XRP, due to the lack of mining  and the unclear manner in which coins are obtained. People associate XRP  so strongly with Ripple, who own a huge amount of XRP, that they worry  that the risk of stricter regulations on XRP would also impact on  Ripple.”

But, as CEO of Ripple Brad Garlinghouse is keen to stress, Ripple and XRP are not the same entity. 

“I think it’s really clear that  XRP is not a security. XRP exists independently of Ripple, and it would  operate even if Ripple Labs failed. I don’t think that our ownership of  XRP gives us control. Saudi Arabia owns a lot of oil; that doesn’t give  them control of oil,” Garlinghouse stated in June. Whatever changes in  the world of crypto-regulation, it’s clear Ripple are working hard to  stay one step ahead of the game.