Ripple CEO: Bitcoin Tribalism Holds the Entire Crypto Market Back

Brad Garlinghouse – Chief Executive Officer of Ripple – believes that maximalism towards bitcoin and other digital assets is not healthy for the cryptocurrency industry. Nonetheless, he admitted owning BTC and ETH.

‘Tribalism’ Around Bitcoin is Bad for the Sector

Being an industry-starter and the largest digital asset by market capitalization has earned BTC countless individual fans throughout the years, while well-known corporations and even a country (El Salvador) embraced the asset as an official payment method.

However, putting bitcoin on a pedestal and creating a “tribalism” around it could hold back the entire nearly $2 trillion crypto market. That is what Ripple’s CEO – Brad Garlinghouse – argued in a recent interview.

“Polarization isn’t healthy in my judgment,” he maintained.

Examples of people who believe only in bitcoin’s merits and reject any other crypto assets are the head of MicroStrategy – Michael Saylor, and Block’s Jack Dorsey. Sometimes, the former’s stance on BTC reaches the state of religion. “Money is something to live with. Bitcoin is something to live for,” he stated last month.

Garlinghouse thinks such maximalism is excessive, and investors should diversify and put their trust in more assets as “all boats can rise.” On the other hand, he admitted being a bitcoin and ether holder:

“I own bitcoin, I own ether, I own some others. I am an absolute believer that this industry is going to continue to thrive.”

Ripple’s CEO, who was previously an executive at Yahoo, compared the nowadays digital asset sector to the dot-com era of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Brad Garlinghouse, Source: CNBC

Garlinghouse Is Against Dogecoin

Despite urging investors to explore more digital assets, Ripple’s boss does not support all of them. One token that he believes is harmful to the crypto industry is Dogecoin (DOGE).

Several months ago, touching upon the financial turbulence, he claimed that the memecoin’s inflationary nature does not classify it as a hedge against inflation:

“I’m actually not convinced, somewhat controversially, I guess, that Dogecoin is good for the crypto market. Dogecoin has some inflationary dynamics itself that would make me reluctant to hold it.”

Unlike other digital assets like Bitcoin, Dogecoin does not have a maximum supply cap. In fact, around 14 million DOGE are mined every day. This has been a catalyst for many experts to estimate that the token’s essence is similar to fiat currencies that are printed at colossal amounts by central banks.