Ripple chief blames Bitcoin and Ethereum for their centralized mining

Bitcoin is the most valuable and respected cryptocurrency, but it also has its problems. One of the most striking is the geographical centralization of its mining, which is mainly concentrated in China. Of course, cryptocurrency, which is supposed to have a decentralized character, does not play into their cards.

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple (who is behind the XRP cryptocurrency), has recently addressed criticism of the centralization of Bitcoin mining. In an interview with Juila Chatterley of CNN, he said that Bitcoin and Ethereum are failing at this point.

Garlinghouse said that Bitcoin mining is most influenced by four mining pools, which account for more than 60% of mining power, adding that up to 80% of the mining capacity of BTC and ETH is in China.

Some leading Bitcoin advocates did not remain silent about Garlinghouse’s criticism, arguing that the figures he gave in an interview with CNN were not accurate.

The truth is that Garlinghouse is partly right. China is indeed a major player in Bitcoin mining. In this respect, Chinese companies Bitmain, Canaan, Bitfury and Hut8 dominate, which together make up a substantial part of the bitcoin hashrate. This means that BTC mining is truly centralized from a geographic point of view, which means that any intervention by the local government of these Chinese companies could have, at least in the short term, consequences for bitcoin hashrate.

The main argument against Ripple’s claims is that the centralization of Bitcoin mining and the dominant position of Chinese miners was not confirmed in November 2017 with the failed SegWit2x (B2X) hardware, which was rejected for lack of consensus.

Drew attention to this in particular Tuur Demeester, who explains the inaccuracy of his claims about China’s influence on Bitcoin: “This is why the study of bitcoin history is so important. The Chinese miners tried to control the BTC blockchain through the B2X hardfork in 2017, but in fact they never changed a single piece of code, ”he explained.

Also curious is that Ripple blames Bitcoin and Ethereum for the centralization of their mining (geographically), although the XRP cryptocurrency behind this company is one of the most centralized in the market.

Garlinghouse said earlier that Bitcoin does not consider as competition for XRP because both cryptocurrencies have quite different uses. He claims to be a Bitcoin fan and also an investor in this cryptocurrency. During the interview, he also heard that Ripple would become the new Amazon in 5 years and that its technology would be used by central banks.

[crypto coins=”BTC,ETH,XRP” columns=”3″]