ET GBS 2023: Digital assets are becoming mainstream products, says Rosie Rios

Digital assets are becoming mainstream products in the financial world and despite setbacks like collapse of crypto exchange FTX, the underlying blockchain technology is here to stay, said Rosie Rios, former US Treasurer and chief executive officer at Red River Associates speaking at the Economic Times Global Business Summit. Rosie added that the underlying technologies of digital assets could be put to many effective uses.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that digital assets are becoming mainstream..,and for me, it is that underlying technology, that’s important.,” said Rosie.

“Blockchain is not going away anytime soon. In my opinion, it absolutely is the future of commerce, whether it is real estate, whether it is art, whether it is nfts(Non-fungible Tokens), it is absolutely here to say,” she added.

Rosie also said the many developing countries were looking at a central bank backed digital currencies. In India, a similar product is being rolled out by the Reserve Bank of India(RBI). Rosie expressed confidence that even the US will eventually have such a central bank backed digital currency, however the process will take time.

“Over 80% of developing countries right now are looking at a central bank digital currency, it will happen. Even in the US it will happen, but it is absolutely going to take some time,” Rosie said.

“As you know, things don’t happen very, very quickly, especially when it comes to the central bank. Now, they are taking this very, very seriously because US Dollar is the world reserve currency. So it is important for them to get this right,” she added.

Taking about the XRP – a product akin to Bitcoin that is issued by Ripple – Rosie said the product has wide range of utility especially in facilitating cross-border payments. Rosie sits on the board of Ripple.“XRP serves a purpose, It’s a function that facilitates cross border payments. It’s not some store of value that is not pegged to anything,” Rosie said. “This is actually what legitimate financial institutions use specifically for cross border payments,” she added.

Talking about the cash spending levels in the US, Rosie said most of the population there continues to prefer cash than digital assets.

“So overall, the results show that substantial portion of the population, believe it or not continue to use cash to make everyday purchases. I remember in 2011 everyone talked that Google Wallet was gonna take over the earth,” said Rosie.

“(These patterns) are very hard to change unless there’s a shock to the system and the pandemic very, clearly impacted consumer behaviour in this case,” she added.