Ripple’s Europe boss: Why ‘crypto bro’ culture is a problem

Ripple has publicly implemented what it calls a “no a***holes” policy, in an effort to set its culture apart among its peers, many of which have drawn criticism for how they treat their employees.

On a Barron’s live Event examining the state of the industry right now, Financial News caught up with Sendi Young, Ripple’s head of Europe, to find out more about the company’s approach to both topics.

Our discussion came amid ongoing regulatory uncertainty in both the US and the UK. Companies operating in Europe appear to be enjoying a clearer set of guidelines from the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets Bill, but still face a two-year implementation period.

Against this backdrop, Young struck a positive note for the future of the sector – but said companies wanted more clarity about which rules they would be dealing with.

The global regulatory landscape for crypto has moved rapidly this year. What must happen next?

What really matters is to have clear regulations on this so that all the players know the rules of the road and can innovate accordingly. Uncertainty is the biggest threat to innovation. We are not against regulation. Regulation will help the crypto unlocking tool.

I have the opportunity to see what is happening in the UK and Europe compared to the US and Asia. I can kind of see the differences. We have outright bans like in China, we have regulation by enforcement in the US, and we have something in between in places like the UK, Europe, Japan, Singapore, UAE, where it’s more about creating that framework so that the players can innovate. The third is certainly the approach we prefer.

The Markets in Crypto Assets bill, which is the new legislation that the European Union just passed and which looks set to come into effect in the next few years, is very important. It is a pivotal moment and it is the first harmonized regulation for such a large region that we have seen.

We applaud that effort. It will really help innovation and help Europe take a step forward to be a crypto hub globally.

There is currently some competition over whether the SEC or Commodities Futures Trading Commission should regulate crypto in the US. Which organization would you choose?

I am not in a position to say who is best placed and who will be beneficial. But there are a few things that really make for good politics.

One of them is public-private cooperation. In the UK, for example, we recently had crypto sprints where the regulator invited the industry to present their views on what regulation can and should look like and what they should watch out for.

READ The UK’s first ever ‘anti-crypto’ conference isn’t just for haters – regulators will be there too

It is a very good approach to understand and consider all the nuances before coming up with something. Another thing that makes good regulation is clear taxonomy around digital assets. Again, I’m not suggesting it be one way or the other, but just having clarity and knowing what you’re dealing with is the most important thing in business.

The major cryptocurrencies are still far down after the crash earlier this year. What’s next for the market?

Obviously, the crypto market has been challenging, but it’s not just crypto. The broader macroeconomic environment is one of the most challenging in recent decades. And in the last year, the crypto markets have been more correlated to the stock market. So it’s obviously very difficult to know if we’ve hit rock bottom.

But in a way it doesn’t matter. Of course, if you invest in the market, it does, but the most exciting part of this industry is the fundamental shift in technology, in the underlying infrastructure that means we can change how value is moved around the world. It’s not just money. I definitely see a world where everything we own will increasingly be tokenized, from your art to your digital photos. Moving it around the world will become more and more important.

Our lives have changed a lot in the last 10 years or so. Everything is on request. Everything is global. Everything you want with a click of your fingers. But the way we interact with the internet and money and value hasn’t really kept up.

READ Why US Lawmakers Want Bitcoin and Ether Under CFTC Scrutiny

You may be very disappointed when you see all these news about the crash, but it also raises a decent amount of funds for projects that create benefit. The companies that focus on building for the long term are still building. And companies like us are still hiring. So it is also important to have a balanced view. The hype is just hype. What matters is what we build, whether we solve real-world problems, and whether we make a fundamental change in the world.

Ripple has a “no a***holes” policy on hiring, and has appeared to set itself apart from its peers who have attracted criticism for the way they treat their workers. Does the crypto sector have a culture problem?

There are some challenges that I have raised that cause problems. One is a lack of transparency. The other problem is cryptobros. And it’s real, unfortunately. With crypto at this intersection of financial services and technology, both of which are typically white male-dominated industries, there is a real threat that we could repeat the same mistakes as those industries.

We see that, both in terms of our anecdotal experiences at conferences and in the recruitment work. A Forex study recently showed that of the 32 largest crypto companies in the world, all CEOs are men, and among the top eight to ten crypto companies on their boards, there is not even one woman. Compare that to Ripple – of our nine board members, we have four women, and other ethnicities represented as well.

Is the male-dominated nature of the industry part of why there are problems?

It’s not just that, and it’s not a binary thing. But for me, something to watch out for is that we’ve seen a massive influx of talent coming into crypto from some of the leading technology companies, leading financial services companies. I personally came from MasterCard.

By nature, if you source talent from there, there is already a lower representation of minority groups and gender. So we have to work extra hard to make sure that since the industry is in its early stages, the people working in it represent the people we’re trying to serve.

At the end of the day, one of the underlying premises of the blockchain and crypto technology is to improve access to financial services and the financial system, where today two billion people are left out of that ecosystem, which is very outdated, created in the pre-internet era and does not serve the needs of many people on this planet.

To contact the author of this story with feedback or news, email Alex Daniel