Coinbase CEO Speaks Out On Recent XRP Support

The co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong has recently spoken out about the use of XRP and USDT for Coinbase international transfers, during a recent AMA session on YouTube.

One Twitter user asked the co-founder what the reason was behind Coinbase choosing XRP and USD Coin for international Coinbase transfers over Bitcoin. The user said “the rationale of faster processing is BS given BTC has many more fiat off-ramps for those internationally.”

Earlier in the week, news about Coinbase launching cross-border payments with XRP and USDC broke out and added that they were ‘optimised for cross-border transmission’. Moreover, the exchange stated that aside from on-chain fees for sending coins outside Coinbase, there will be no fees charged for transfers between Coinbase users.

In response to this question, Armstrong said:

“You can definitely send BTC off platform as well and use it for remittance. I think you’re referring to the lending page that we put out that was sort of emphasizing some of the use cases around it, don’t read too much into that. Like, you can do remittance with crypto on Coinbase in XRP, BTC and USD Coin, all of the above.”

What followed was Armstrong actually agreeing with the user in regards to Bitcoin having more fiat off-ramps.

Also in the AMA session, Armstrong spoke about the most ambitious thing that Coinbase wanted to do in the next five years. He stated that one of these things was to have around a hundred thousands people in Venezuela look at crypto in around a year with GiveCrypto, Coinbases charity fund.

“[…] I want to see if we can spark a bunch of uses there [Venezuela] and actually have a country in the world tip in. In other words, like 50% or more of all transactions in the economy are happening in crypto like that would be amazing, maybe you know, honestly like overthrow some corrupt dictators in the world that would be awesome […]”

The move Coinbase has made to support XRP and not Bitcoin has been a controversial one which sent some enthusiasts into uproar. They believe that the exchange is being biased towards XRP by giving it such support, hence the question Armstrong was asked.