Senior Ripple Executive Says ‘The Biggest Risk We Face Today Is Regulation’

Asheesh Birla, the senior vice president of product at Ripple has stated that the biggest risk the company is faced with is regulation.

Hence, Ripple is creating a large regulatory team with the duty of ensuring that the next wave of clients that the startup wins are not restricted by regulatory issues.

“We are going around the world making sure that for the next 1,000 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 Birla during a panel session dubbed ‘Scaling and Digital Disruption in Fintech’ that was organized by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Scale School.

One of the regulatory challenges presently faced by Ripple is whether it should be termed as a security or not. Even though the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has made clear that Ethereum ad Bitcoin are not securities, the same clarification has not be given to XRP. Yet, the company has maintained that it is not a security and that Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse has made all efforts to stress the company’s opinion.

“I think it’s really clear that XRP is not a security. XRP exists independent 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 was quoted as saying late last month.

During the ‘Scaling and Digital Disruption in Fintech’ panel session, Birla noted that the reason most countries across the world are going with a conservative approach in relation to cryptocurrencies was that the industry is considerably at its early stage.

And even though he recognizes that cryptocurrencies hold a transformative potential on the world, Birla regarded what Ripple was doing as more of ‘reshuffling the world order a little bit’ instead of disrupting banks. According to Birla, Ripple’s technology will help smaller financial institutions to better stand against the bigger ones.