Bitcoin Controlled by '4 Miners in China,' Ripple CEO Claims

For nearly 10 years, Bitcoin has been the flagship digital currency of the crypto market. And similar to all things that are on top, those below it are eager to knock it off from its foothold so they can take the mantle.

Ripple (XRP) is one of those currencies that are looking to unseat Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency is currently ranked third by market capitalization holding at more than $21 billion. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has $111 billion. A recent jab by Ripple came from its CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, who said that Bitcoin is under the thumb of China.

“I’ll tell you another story that is underreported, but worth paying attention to. Bitcoin is really controlled by China. There are four miners in China that control over 50 percent of Bitcoin,” Garlinghouse claimed. “How do we know that China won’t intervene? How many countries want to use a Chinese-controlled currency? It’s just not going to happen.”

He claimed this when he spoke at the 2018 Stifel Cross Sector Insight Conference in Boston, Cointelegraph reported. However, the claim is rather odd since Bitcoin has been ranked 13th on China’s list of top cryptocurrencies, to the outrage of the crypto community.

Aside from ribbing Bitcoin, Garlinghouse also spoke about blockchain and argued that the technology “will not disrupt banks.” The German government has a somewhat similar sentiment, recently releasing a statement saying that the crypto market doesn’t pose a threat to its financial stability as the global financial industry is operating on a different level.

This isn’t the first time that Garlinghouse has disparaged Bitcoin. He recently said that the cryptocurrency will end up dying, similar to what happened to Napster. He also pointed out that Bitcoin takes 45 minutes to complete a transaction, whereas XRP takes only four seconds. He called XRP “the best digital asset for settlement.”