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Monica Long says ‘SEC is not a friendly gateway for us into the US’
Ripple President Monica Long joined CNBC Senior Correspondent Arjun Kharpal at Money 20/20 to discuss the infrastructure needed to implement crypto.
Their conversation focused on the theme “Building Infrastructure Fundamentals,” focused on the perception and adoption of digital assets by traditional financial institutions.
Long noted a significant change in American legislation and traditional financial institutions, citing the Bitcoin ETF Approved in the United States as a crucial moment for crypto adoption. “Having BlackRock involved was a big moment,” Long said. Many financial institutions have slowly adopted crypto technology, recognizing it as a contemporary financial framework, Long said.
Clearer regulations
Despite the recent Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) ETF approvals, Long highlighted the need for greater regulatory clarity. When speaking about the real-world uses of digital assets, Long highlighted the benefits of decentralized institutional finance (DeFi) in core banking transactions.
“Basic financial services like deposits, payments, lending, credit and capital markets can benefit from a more global, open and efficient system,” Long said, comparing blockchain’s potential impact on finance to that of the Internet on communication.
Long mentioned European Union crypto-asset markets (MiCA) as a great example of a clear regulatory framework and hints at the United States’ slow but steady relationship with crypto.
“Entering the U.S. market through the SEC does not seem like a friendly, customer-friendly entry point for us,” Long said.
Long expressed cautious optimism about regulatory clarity in the United States, noting that stablecoin legislation could be a positive step.
Private or public blockchain
Long also discussed the debate between private and public blockchains and pointed out that private blockchains are still used for technologies such as central bank digital currencies (CBDC), but notable progress has been recorded in public records.
For example, Société Générale issued the first stablecoin in euros on a public ledger. Ripple also launches a stablecoin regulated in US dollars.
Fraud
Long highlighted the difference between fraudulent behavior and the technology itself when discussing the fallout from scandals like FTX.
“To clarify, as an industry, there is fraud, which is what happened in the case of FTX finance. There are blatant compliance violations, violations,” Long said. “But it’s not that the technology is bad or that all the players present us all as a broad spectrum of fraudsters and criminals.”
FTX’s collapse and fraud do not reflect the entire crypto industry: positive applications of blockchain remain, Long emphasized.
“There are aftereffects of these events, but it’s important to separate fraud from legitimate applications of technology,” she said.