Trump administration is not happy about chinese domination in Bitcoin mining so they are planning to put Ripple’s severely criticized XRP token in opposition to Bitcoin.
Chinese miners comprise more than 80% of bitcoin’s hashpower which is an uncomfortable truth for many, White House included. Seeing bitcoin’s popularity rise among younger generations, US government is open to researching its potential and XRP is allegedly one of the options they consider in putting forward as Bitcoin’s main competition. They clearly need more education on the whole bitcoin and XRP background stories, but that is beyond the scope of this article.
Cory Johnson, Ripple’s new chief marketing strategies stated:
“When I started to meet with people in government and regulators, I had very low expectations. I have been truly amazed at the open-mindedness, number one,” recalled Johnson. “And number two, the smart questions, sometimes even tough questions. There’s clearly a lot of homework going on. The White House, in particular, seems to be thinking about what it means to have 80 percent of Bitcoin mining taking place in China and a majority of Ether mining taking place in China.”
Centralized and decentralized coins
More than 60% of XRP supply is controlled by Ripple Labs, the company that created the Ripple ledger which is the main point of criticism they get from the rest of the crypto community. Ripple’s main counterargument to that is that bitcoin is even more centralized and controlled most prominently by Bitmain, a chinese mining and manufacturing company that mines bitcoin directly or via its subsidiaries.
In terms of speculative price and market behaviors, XRP has shown ability to unleash itself from bitcoin clutches and move up (or down) independently, going from $0.28 to $0.60 in sudden, sharp moves.
“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,” said Johnson. “And in conversations we’ve had with the administration, they seem to get that and think that might matter.”
Chinese Clampdown on Bitcoin Mining Companies
While the US government and Ripple ponder how to solve China’s dominance in bitcoin mining, the world’s most populated country is busy chasing mining companies out of its jurisdiction.
Bitcoin operations are still completely banned under the current administration. In spite of that, a market outside of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) domain are still active, which also involve miner companies in small towns across the republic.
Bitcoin seems to be another field where China and US plan to test each other in the turbulent race for world domination.
I might need glasses, but can you point me to the part in this article where reportedly Ripple states that XRP
possibly will become a weapon to battle China dominance?