In May this year, the cryptocurrency payment startup Ripple, hired Johnson as its new market strategist. His main role at the company is to explain Ripple’s complex story to investors. Recently, he gave his two cents on the current position of Ripple in an attempt to clear the air about the centrality of XRP.
XRP is independent of Ripple
One of the most important things he touched on is that Ripple, the parent company, can dissolve without actually affecting the existence of XRP tokens.
It is worth noting that Ripple Labs has gone through many accusations of its tokens being centralized. Most purists in the crypto community have refused to accept Ripple (XRP) as a true cryptocurrency. While Ripple has reiterated these claims aren’t true and that Ripple network is decentralized, the majority of enthusiasts in the crypto community are yet to be convinced of this. Johnson repeated yesterday that XRP could live in the absence of Ripple Labs. He said:
“And if Ripple were to go away, the Johnson family would be quite sad, but XRP would continue to exist, and many other companies, many start-up base, many beyond that, are using XRP as a core technology, again, to try to find new businesses. And really, the technology for XRP is like Bitcoin two dot oh. It’s Bitcoin, but it’s faster. It’s Bitcoin, but it doesn’t use tons of power. It’s Bitcoin, but it’s not controlled by Chinese miners. But fundamentally, it is a blockchain digital asset that is used principally for the movement of value.”
The San Francisco-based blockchain startup has been in the crypto space for six years now and has partnered with dozens of financial institutions across the world. Given its close relationships with banks, the blockchain startup has been a subject of debate around decentralization.