There’s no doubt at this point that cryptocurrencies have already reached mainstream success. In fact, what’s missing is its mass adoption.
Unfortunately, one of the reasons why regulators decided to uphold strict guidelines is because of its price volatility and mainly the potential problems that it can cause. Aside from investors losing money, anonymity is a problem for a lot of regulators since it can involve money laundering, tax evasion, and other illicit activities. And for this reason, China has been shutting down cryptocurrency exchanges and ICOs. In fact, even mining activities are tracked down.
What exactly makes China special is the fact that it has a large market. And recently, Ripple could be the cryptocurrency that could break into the Chinese market by the end of the year. Its creator mentioned that he is “very confident” that Ripple is going to be adopted by the Chinese market.
Informal Talks
Ripple has been doing informal talks with regulators, banks, as well as payment providers. Its goal is to launch its XCurrent software in China. What it offers is to give banks the capability to provide seamless cross-border payments with the end-to-end track without using cryptocurrency.
Sagar Sarghai who works as Ripple’s head of government and regulatory relations for Asia Pacific mentioned that “This year you will see more announcements coming in on China, in terms of educating and differentiating us from some of the other cryptocurrencies that are out there”.
He also added that “As we speak, our team is strategizing about entering the market, but it’s still very early days”.
One of the reasons why Ripple experienced delayed entry to the Chinese market is mainly because of the lack of regulatory clarity surrounding blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. In fact, the CEO of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse mentioned last year that the launch in China was imminent.
Regulatory Clarity
Sarghai mentioned that “We’re trying to get some regulatory clarity, we’ve started engaging informally with banks, FIs, and payment providers, speaking to regulators and government bodies, trying to educate on what Ripple is and what our vision is”.
So far, Ripple has already penetrated Japan, India, and Thailand. They are also in active discussion with other countries in the Asia Pacific. Sabhai mentioned that they are “finding one bank almost every week”.
Ripple already had a partnership with LianLian, a Hong Kong-based money transfer company. What Ripple provides the Hong Kong-based company is the ability to process real-time invoice and e-commerce payments on behalf of businesses using Ripple. And because of this deal, the Hong Kong-based company has been getting inbound payments from the Chinese market. However, at this point, Ripple is still not yet present in China.
So far, Ripple’s strategy to penetrate the Chinese market is to provide software that can hasten the banks’ ability to move money across borders with minimal costs.
What exactly does it mean for Ripple? China is definitely a large market. If they are able to successfully penetrate the Chinese market, expect Ripple to have a bullish trend in the near future.
