Monica Long says ‘SEC is not a friendly entryway for us in the US’

Ripple President Monica Long joins CNBC Senior Correspondent Arjun Kharpal on Money 20/20 to discuss the infrastructure required for crypto implementation.

Their talks centered around the theme of “Building Infrastructure Foundations,” focusing on traditional financial institutions’ perception and adoption of digital assets.

Pointing out a significant shift in US legislation and traditional financial institutions, Long stated that the Bitcoin ETF approval in the US is a crucial moment for the adoption of cryptocurrencies. “BlackRock’s involvement was a big moment,” Long said. Many financial institutions are gradually adopting crypto technology and accepting it as a contemporary financial framework, Long said.

Clearer regulations

Despite recent Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) ETF approvals, Long emphasized the need for more clarity in legislation. While discussing real-world uses of digital assets, Long highlighted the advantages of enterprise decentralized finance (DeFi) in core banking transactions.

“Core financial services such as deposits, payments, lending, credit and capital markets can benefit from a more global, open and efficient system,” Long said, comparing the potential impact of blockchain on finance to the internet’s impact on communications.

Long mentioned the European Union’s CryptoAsset Market (MiCA) regulation as a prime example of a clear regulatory framework and pointed to the US’s slowly but steadily improving relationship with crypto.

“Entering the U.S. market through the SEC doesn’t seem like a gateway for us that would provide a friendly, amicable way of entry,” Long said.

Long expressed cautious optimism about regulatory clarity in the US, stating that stablecoin legislation could be a positive step.

Private and public blockchain

Long also discussed the debate between private and public blockchains, noting that private blockchains are still used for technologies such as central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) but there have been notable advances in public ledgers.

For example, Société Générale issued the first euro stablecoin on the public ledger. Ripple is also launching a regulated US dollar stablecoin.

Fake

When discussing the fallout from scandals like FTX, Long emphasized the difference between fraudulent behavior and the technology itself.

“To be clear, there is fraud as an industry, the same happened in FTX finance. There are obvious compliance violations, violations,” Long said. “But that doesn’t mean the technology is bad or that all the players paint us all as a broad spectrum of scammers and criminals.”

Long emphasized that FTX’s collapse and fraud does not reflect the entire crypto industry, and that positive blockchain applications continue to exist.

“There is a hangover from these events, but it is important to separate fraud from legitimate applications of technology,” he said.