The middle of February 2019 saw a number of high profile FUD articles pointing to the newly announced blockchain token from JP Morgan as a so called “Ripple Killer”. Bloomberg, CCN, Coindesk and of course CNBC and most other Bitcoin backed crypto “news” sites all jumped on the anti-XRP bandwagon. This attack is following on from some disastrously bad FUD reporting from high profile bloggers like Frances Forbes Coppola and more strikingly a few days of massive anti-XRP Twitter bots attacks:

❗️What the hell? You are right. There are bots tweeting to individual users, warning them about XRP. I would say report them all, but reporting too many accounts might put your own at risk.

cc: @TwitterSupport $XRP #XRPCommunity pic.twitter.com/bawcqyegXR — Tiffany Hayden🧢 (@haydentiff) February 13, 2019

This is all very bad for Ripple and XRP one may think, but that thinking is entirely wrong and we shall explain why.

The 8 Reasons why JPM Coin is fantastic news for XRP

Regulatory clarity – The fact that a higher than high profile Wall Street bank like JP Morgan wishes to enter the crypto space with their own fiat pegged token is a clear signal that the Wild West of crypto is coming to an end. Jamie Dimon (the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase ) has for years been criticising XRP, Bitcoin and crypto in general in a (successful) attempt to crash the crypto market down to a level where the big boys can enter and dominate. Let’s not pretend that Wall Street doesn’t have massive influence over the US government so now that JPM as well as a couple of other banks are ready to launch pegged coins you can expect them to take the brakes off the regulators and push the crypto bills forward (with these bills currently being finally pushed through the government are we surprised by the timing?).

XRP has had its head held under water for the past year and regulatory certainty in the United States is the kick start it is patiently waiting for more than any other coin in crypto. Walled Gardens – The banking sector is full of walled gardens and it is a dog eat dog world of competition. Rival banks are not going to adopt JPM Coin. As it transpires there are already competitor banks talking about their own coins, BarclaysCoin has been mooted by Barclays bank, CitiCoin from Citibank, MUFG coin from Mitsubishi and SCoin is yet another of the many already being talked about.

Outside of each banking groups individual network, they are not going to be pushing their competition and thus XRP as bridge settlement is almost a given. In fact in a Linkedin post from August 2016, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse already showed they were way ahead of the game and had their plans in place for these bank coin upstarts:

“I have to say it’s deeply misguided. A bank-issued digital asset can only really efficiently settle between the banks who issued it. Then, two scenarios can play out.

Scenario one: all banks around the world put aside competitive and geopolitical differences, adopt the same digital asset, agree on its rules, and harmoniously govern its usage. Fat chance.

Scenario two (the more likely scenario): banks not in the issuing group issue their own digital assets with their own sets of rules and governance.” Asia, Russia and the Middle East – These 3 global regions have no interest in helping a USA bank take control of cryptocurrencies and global remittance. China holds the purse strings to most of the mineable cryptos (particularly all the Bitcoin and Ethereum variations and forks) and can (and probably will) do with them as they please when the timing is right. China also virtually owns the US (via USD holdings and debt) so any USD pegged crypto is far from being able to justify itself as a stable coin.

Japan, South Korea and the rest of Asia also have their own agendas and more political and financial muscle than the US would have you believe. And of course Putins Russia has no interest in making Jamie Dimon a global banking superstar. Unless a counterparty free global settlement token is found, these JPM Coins will not even get off the ground. Step in XRP. Yoshitaka Kitao – This CEO of SBI – the massive Japanese banking and financial giant – is absolutely one of the most brilliant minds in all of global business and he has a team around him with the credentials to complement him. Kitao has his hand in a lot of pots of gold and has been deep in the crypto space for longer than most of you reading this blog. While he may not be the (in)famous Satoshi Nakamoto in person, such is his influence over the entire crypto ecosystem that he above everyone else is deserving of the moniker. Mr Kitao is balls deep in Ripple, R3, XRP and is hell bent on seeing XRP thrash Bitcoin to within an inch of its life. Bet against this great man at your peril for he holds many of the keys for the eventual crypto worldwide acceptance, adoption and utility. The Ripple team – Threats come and go in all walks of business but with the strongest and smartest team in all of crypto at the helm, Ripple have shaken this FUD off like water off a ducks back as shown by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s Tweet today “As predicted, banks are changing their tune on crypto. But this JPM project misses the point – introducing a closed network today is like launching AOL after Netscape’s IPO. 2 years later, and bank coins still aren’t the answer”

David Schwartz showed back in January what he thought of this bankers coin threat with one of his Tweets stating “If banks respond by building walled gardens, we’ll position XRP to bridge across those walled gardens. If they want one big walled garden to take over, they’ll have to be as open as we are.”

Clearly nothing JP Morgan is attempting is coming as a surprise to team Ripple and we can once again be sure they have planned for this for years. JPM Coin doesn’t actually work yet – While the announcement has been very high profile, the blockchains and cryptos of these banks are a long way from being the finished article and wont work for quite some time to come. Liquidity – XRP is working hard to get the liquidity for a full scale launch of products like xRapid. This is not something that happens overnight and these bank coins have an almost insurmountable mountain to climb before they are close to where XRP is today. There is no such thing as bad publicity – Ripple and XRP can handle the FUD, especially with the incredible #XRPCommunity on their side. And whatever gets the name out there only ingrains it into the general public consciousness. XRP is going to be a household name in years to come, taking over the crypto mantle from Bitcoin only with the added benefit that the general population will be able to understand a cryptocurrency that actually serves a purpose (or many dozens of purposes thanks to projects like xRapid, xVia, R3 Corda, Coil, XRPL Labs, Xpring, XRP charities, etc, etc).

JP Morgan may well have scored an own goal this week and opened the doors for XRP to take over the crypto space completely. Though it is only a matter of time before the old guard are replaced anyway and JP Morgan, the Bitcoin Maximalist websites, the Twitter bots and the market manipulators can only hold this thing down for so long. Make no mistake, there are entities out there wanting crypto prices low so they can accumulate vast quantities and scare you into selling to them. There are also a great many Bitcoin holders, early adopters and miners who will do anything (no matter how unscrupulous) in order to keep BTC at number 1 so they can slow bleed their profit taking. But now the banks have really shown their hand it is just a question of time before the regulations are pushed through and XRP can finally get to work properly and own this space completely. Be prepared.

Final note on the 8 Reasons JPM Coin is fantastic news for XRP: Please do not take this blog post as a buy signal for XRP or crypto in general. The 8 Reasons JPM Coin is fantastic news for XRP is one bloggers opinion and not financial advice. I am convinced the future for all crypto is bright but that doesn’t mean I don’t think prices could still go much lower in the short term, anything can happen before we get the official green light.