Cory Johnson Discusses XRP, Ripple’s Native Crypto Asset

Since Bitcoin (BTC), the world’s first blockchain-backed cryptocurrency, was deemed a non-security by U.S. regulators, discussion has raged regarding the legal status of other prominent crypto assets, such as Ripple’s XRP, Ethereum (ETH), or Monero (XMR).

Speaking with Molly Jane Zuckerman in an exclusive CoinTelegraph interview, Cory Johnson, chief marketing strategist at San Francisco-based Ripple, sought to bring clarity to XRP’s non-security/security legal debate.

Unsurprisingly (or surprisingly for some), Johnson noted that “it is really clear” to those at Ripple, a prominent financial technology (fintech) startup, that XRP shouldn’t be classified as a security, noting that the asset’s “relation to Ripple is proof of that.” What the industry leader seems to be alluding to is the fact that Ripple is only a company building on top of XRP’s ledger, and that the relationship between the two separate entities is often misconstrued.

Discussing a more pertinent point, Johnson, who formerly worked at Bloomberg TV and Jim Cramer’s TheStreet.com, noted that consumers can “buy all the XRP you want,” but it doesn’t give token holders access to “a dime” of Ripple’s profits, earnings per share, dividends, interest, etc. The long-time entrepreneur elaborated, noting:

God forbid, if this company were to go away, it would be a very sad day for the Johnson family (him), but it wouldn’t make a bit of a difference to XRP. The asset continues to exist separated from Ripple. And so for that reason, I think when the SEC takes a good hard look at this, and we know that they’re starting to do this work, they’re going to recognize that the crypto asset is so clearly not a security.

As revealed by Johnson later in the interview, fundamentally, contrary to popular belief, the fastest way to move fiat currency is to put it in suitcases and jump on an airplane. Noting that this is obviously “ridiculous,” the Ripple executive first noted that traditional money transfers from New York to London aren’t the most pertinent issue, adding that is an apparent issue when consumers and institutions want to issue exchanges for their Thai Baht to South African Rand, which may take days and is subject to the fallible nature of humans.

Implying that money transfers should be as fast as online communication, the prominent entrepreneur added:

We live in an era – I mean you and I send text messages to friends overseas in seconds, we send an email with an attachment, with an Excel spreadsheet, with all kinds of important data in seconds – but it takes days to move money. That’s crazy, isn’t it? It causes businesses to lose business, and it raises the cost for individuals moving money back to their family.

The Ripple Team echoed this sentiment in a recent blog post, which was fittingly titled “Faster Cross-Border Payments Shouldn’t Require a Boarding Pass.” pointing out that its goal is to make global payments frictionless, and the free and instant (or near-instant) movement of money. Giving a bit of an update on RippleNet, which allows financial institutions to send and settle international payments “on-demand,” noting that the system is now active in over 40 countries across six continents, allowing users of RippleNet to “provide a faster, cheaper, and more transparent payments experience for their customers around the world.”

The post Ripple Exec: “XRP Is Clearly Not A Security” appeared first on Ethereum World News.

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