Head of RippleNet Says Fintech Could Compete with Banks in 2021

RippleNet General Manager Asheesh Birla expects that fintech firms will emerge as serious competitors to traditional banking institutions in 2021.    

Birla even goes as far as predicting that a cryptocurrency company could soon acquire a legacy financial institution:

“The tide is turning. It’s possible that we could even see a fintech or cryptocurrency company acquire a traditional financial institution this coming year.”          

More regulatory clarity

This, according to Birla, will be achieved with the help of more robust regulations in this sector:

Ripple’s General Counsel Stu Alderoty claims that regulating cryptocurrencies will be a hot-button issue for the Biden administration:

Intelligent, well thought-out regulations communicated effectively and uniformly applied can help level the playing field and unleash innovation and further mainstream adoption here in the U.S.

After clamoring for regulatory clarity for years, Ripple got sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission back in December.

Biden’s SEC chair pick, Gary Gensler, has already signaled that his agenda will include special purpose acquisition companies (SPAC), fintech companies, and cryptocurrency abuses, according to FOX Business correspondent Charles Gasparino.     

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Chipping away at Ethereum’s dominance in DeFi

Apart from taking on traditional finance, Ripple has an even more ambitious goal in mind — upending Ethereum’s dominance in the decentralized finance sector.

Ripple’s Head of DeFi Michael Zochowski predicts that the second-largest blockchain will lose at least a quarter of its value deployed in different protocols to other blockchains:  

I believe at least 25% of the value deployed in DeFi by the end of 2021 will be on networks other than Ethereum.

With Flare adding smart contracts to XRPL, tokenization, and decentralized exchanges, XRP could have a prominent place in the DeFi space.    

Overall, Zochowski expects this industry niche to come out of age in 2021 and gain even more momentum.