China and America have always had rocky relations, with the recent trade war instigated by the Trump administration certainly not making things any easier. This trade war has left Chinese firms looking to do business with American firms via more secretive methods – mainly dealing in cryptocurrencies. While Bitcoin won’t exactly prosper due to a trade war between the two nations, it won’t harm the cryptocurrency either. However, America is looking for an alternative to Bitcoin to promote as a cryptocurrency, due to the fact that China holds the power to completely both destroy Bitcoin, as well as control it. Many are now asking, could Ripple be the key? Will America turns its attention towards XRP?
China Controls Bitcoin
While no one person – or nation for that matter – can rightly claim Bitcoin as their own, miners do have a certain level of influence over the network. Unfortunately for America, Chinese mining firms make up well over half the total Bitcoin network hash rate, and this means that if China decides to impose a blanket crypto mining ban in the country, the Bitcoin network will lose the majority of its hash rate overnight. It could go the other way whereby the Chinese government takes control of the mining firms and becomes the single largest mining entity in the world. Either outcome is rather terrifying, but there is still a third option for China – it could simply leave the miners alone and let Bitcoin exist. Brad Garlinghouse – Ripple CEO – has said on numerous occasions that Bitcoin is controlled by China, could Trump be taking these claims too seriously?
America Looking for a Counter-Bitcoin
In the American government’s eyes, Bitcoin’s sole weakness is the fact that it can be mined. In a bid to back a cryptocurrency that could beat China and prevent them from destroying American society, the Trump administration has turned to Ripple. When people in the crypto world hear the name Ripple they shudder – well most of them do anyway.
Ripple has been accused of not really being a cryptocurrency and it was recently mocked for announcing Bill Clinton as a keynote speaker at its Swell conference. However, from the point of view that it cannot be mined so therefore is protected from China taking it down or tampering with it, it’s a pretty safe choice.
White House Backing Ripple
Cory Johnson – Ripple Chief Marketing Strategist – said that the White House “seems to be thinking about what it means to have 80 percent of bitcoin mining taking place in China, when you look at XRP, there is no mining, so from a foreign-control aspect or from an environmental aspect, XRP is a very different beast. And the administration seem to get that and think that might matter.” This strongly suggests that the White House is getting ready to back Ripple and we could soon see some positive news for the crypto coming out of the SEC.
Whichever way the White House proceeds, the most important thing is that it’s for the good of the crypto industry. If it decides to back Ripple then the crypto world would want to see some form of declaration from the SEC that it’s not a security. Alternatively, the White House could look at making crypto mining more attractive in the US, helping boost the hash rate coming from within the United States. Trump and his administration have a number of paths to explore, let’s just hope he makes the right decision.
