Ripple has asked the US Congress for greater regulatory clarity about cryptocurrencies in a letter published Sunday on blogging platform Medium. In their letter, the company claims that without a clear regulatory framework, there is a risk to the innovation, jobs, and tax revenue that blockchain technology can create overseas.

What Ripple Wants

Ripple’s letter is essentially a plea for a partnership with regulators. While other cryptocurrencies revel in their role as a threat to the current finance establishment, Ripple counts a significant chunk as customers for its products. The company has a customer portfolio of more than 2,000 institutions, among them nationalized banks and well-known financial services firms. It has also expanded into remittances in South Korea via a partnership with MoneyGram. Regulatory clarity and permission is essential for the company to expand its business.

The federal government has refused to provide clear directives concerning cryptocurrencies. Regulations concerning them are governed by outdated laws or is a patchwork of different requirements across states.

In the Medium letter, Ripple stated that it had no desire to replace the current financial system. Instead, it was interested in enhancing it through financial inclusion and greater economic growth. The letter noted that just as with the Internet, the US had a chance to play a leading role when it came to crypto and that this was only possible if there was regulatory clarity from the US Congress.

Senate Hearing on Crypto Regulation

This letter comes just as the Senate Banking Committee is set to hold a hearing on creating regulation for crypto and blockchain technology. The hearing, which is going to be streamed live tomorrow, has three witnesses/ Jeremy Allaire, CEO and co-founder of Circle – a crypto-based payments service, will testify along with Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor at the University Of California School Of Law. This hearing comes just a short while after a hearing on Facebook Libra. During the hearing, the US Senate Banking Committee took Facebook to task over its planned Libra project. They wanted clarification on issues such as trust, regulatory compliance, and privacy.