瑞波公司首席執行官布拉德·加林豪斯感覺很不錯。他剛在多倫多一場嘈雜的論壇上介紹了堪比本·伯南克的大牛，還有加密屆天才維塔利克·布特林，與此同時，他執掌的瑞波公司發展迅速。

截至本月，瑞波已向超過100家銀行發放許可證應用其區塊鏈技術，而據Coinmarketcap統計，數字貨幣瑞波幣（XRP）市值接近80億美元，成為僅次于比特幣和以太坊的第三大數字貨幣。

《財富》采訪了加林豪斯，主要想了解其下一步動向，例如瑞波打算如何處置巨量瑞波幣，加林豪斯稱之為“戰略武器”。

以下是采訪實錄，重點包括：存量瑞波幣與瑞波公司戰略密切相關；瑞波已經盈利（不過目前利潤部分來源是出售瑞波幣）；加林豪斯認為主要數字貨幣會和平相處。

采訪中也提到了銀行如何使用瑞波幣的情況，加林豪斯還表示擔心各國央行出臺自己的數字貨幣取代現有幣種。（劇透一下：他不是特別擔心。）

以下就是談話內容，為簡潔明確已經過編輯：

The Ledger：瑞波公司和瑞波幣跟其他區塊鏈應用有何區別？

布拉德·加林豪斯：目前來看，瑞波沒成為主流區塊鏈公司的原因是我們不是比特幣。之前我們的觀點比較克制，沒想著對抗銀行，也不想對抗政府，我們的貨幣沒什么反抗性。所以有段時間里，我們與更傾向自由主義的加密貨幣競爭有些困難。

2017年，人們終于意識到不能讓一種加密貨幣統治市場。所以現在瑞波幣負責提供支付問題的垂直解決方案，以太坊專門做智能領域，比特幣越來越變成價值存儲工具。三種貨幣沒有相互競爭。事實上，我很希望比特幣和以太坊成功。

為什么銀行需要瑞波幣？

是出于流動性方面的考慮。如果銀行有瑞波幣之類工具，是具備實際價值的。現在銀行管理數十萬億流動性需求都是通過同業賬戶。我們認為這種方式效率很低。其實可以使用數字資產提供流動性，瑞波提供的服務就很合適。比特幣得四個小時才能完成一筆交易，瑞波幣只要3.6秒。

請解釋下瑞波公司如何向銀行提供瑞波幣。

瑞波網加速器項目就是為了分配價值3億美元的瑞波幣，目標是推進應用。有點類似早期的維薩卡。大致意思就是“銀行老爺們，鼓勵你們多用用瑞波幣。我們會支付瑞波幣。”如果他們不想要瑞波幣，也可以給美元。

目前我們沒提供過瑞波幣，也不完全準確。一年半前我們測試過。當時給過十多家銀行少量瑞波幣，主要為了證明瑞波幣可多邊使用。我們希望未來能解決銀行的流動性問題。

但我不會直接給銀行瑞波幣。這事得水到渠成，先有X和Y，Z自然會發生。

瑞波公司的定價模型怎么制定？

部分是軟件許可，部分是專業服務，還有一部分是交易費用。

價格取決于銀行的規模，還有打算使用瑞波進行的轉賬交易數量。這些都是重要的承諾。我們說的可不是向Salesforce賣10個席位的許可，一年幾千美元的生意。起碼后面得加個0。

央行可能推出自己的數字貨幣，有沒有讓你夜不能寐？

沒有。我們跟全球十多家央行討論過，運氣還不錯。我覺得我這輩子看不到央行放棄法定貨幣。

法定貨幣到底什么意思？看看這張紙（舉起一張20美元紙幣），其實也就是個符號，一張20美元的紙幣加上一串序號。將紙幣符號化什么意思？我其實也不太懂。經常聽人們談起，但是不理解。

擔任首席執行官近一年，你跟瑞波兩位聯合創始人關系如何？

克里斯（拉爾森）全權參與公司事務。他擔任總裁，我們每天都要談工作。克里斯對互聯網價值的設想基本沒變。我跟杰德（麥凱萊布）沒什么接觸。我見過杰德幾次，也知道（他的公司）Stellar主要做什么，其他就不了解了。

瑞波公司賺錢了么？多少來自出售瑞波幣？

可以說我們現金流是正的，所以對整個行業生態和公司有益的項目都可以投。我們在瑞波幣市場上公開透明非常重要，所以每季度都會發布報告，說明當季在公開市場出售多少幣，還有賣給機構投資者多少幣。

是，如果不賣瑞波幣我們現金流不會是正的。這就說回瑞波幣的意義了，這些幣是投資生態重要的戰略武器。有了幣我們才能請得起全世界最優秀的工程師，還能向平臺和相關技術持續投資。

人們對瑞波有哪些誤解？

我覺得最容易誤解的一點就是，有人會說“哦，瑞波是個集中化的平臺。”在我看來這是老掉牙的看法。瑞波的技術IRP是開源的，瑞波幣的記賬本也是開源的。

如果瑞波公司消失了，瑞波幣就不會繼續交易。我認為這正是去中心化的含義。由于瑞波幣生態系統中重要參與方瑞波公司堅持投資一些好項目，幣價是可能走低。但我堅持認為關于集中化和去中心化還是存在誤解。雖然我絮叨了一堆不知道《財富》讀者會不會關心的事，其實都是技術層面的問題。

實現互聯網價值方面，瑞波公司理想很遠大。對我們來說，問題在于如何促進理想實現，將各種價值資源聯結起來，價值資源主要指的是銀行。加密社區里還在把銀行當成敵人的，終會自食苦果。

瑞波公司稱，由于Coinmarketcap只計算流通市值而非總市值，其市值實際上為188億美元。（財富中文網）

譯者：Pessy

審校：夏林?

Brad Garlinghouse is feeling good. The CEO of Ripple just brought the likes of Ben Bernanke and crypto-wunderkind Vitalik Buterin to a buzzy conference in Toronto, and his company is growing fast.

As of this month, Ripple has licensed its blockchain technology to over 100 banks while its digital currency, XRP, now has a market cap of nearly $8 billion* according to Coinmarketcap—third behind the digital money giants, bitcoin and Ethereum.

Fortune’s The Ledger caught up with Garlinghouse to find out where all this is going, including how Ripple plans to deploy its bulging reserves of XRP, which he describes as a “strategic weapon.”

You can read our Q&A below, but the important takeaways include: the XRP hoard is integral to Ripple’s business strategy; Ripple is making money (though its profits for now depend in part on selling that XRP); Garlinghouse believes big digital currencies will have a peaceful coexistence.

There’s also some stuff on how banks are using XRP, and on whether Garlinghouse worries central banks will replace digital currencies with tokens of their own. (Spoiler: he’s not too worried.)

Here’s the conversation, which has been edited for brevity and clarity:

The Ledger: How does Ripple and XRP compare to other blockchains?

Brad Garlinghouse: For a period of time, Ripple wasn’t mainstream blockchain because because we weren’t bitcoin. We took a rather contrarian view at the time that we’re not anti-bank, we’re not anti-government, we’re not anti-fiat currency. For a while that took conviction to stay the course in the face of the more libertarian elements of crypto.

In 2017, people have realized there isn’t going to be one crypto to rule them all. You’re seeing vertical solutions where XRP is focused on payment problems, Ethereum is focused on smart contacts, and increasingly bitcoin is a store of value. Those aren’t competitive. In fact, I want bitcoin and Ethereum to be successful.

Why do banks need XRP?

It’s about liquidity. If you have a utility like XRP that has a real value proposition. The liquidity needs of banks today is managed with literally ten trillion of float that sits in these nostro and vostro accounts. We believe very strong this is an inefficient model. You can use digital assets to fund liquidity, and Ripple is uniquely positioned to capitalize on that. Bitcoin takes four hours to settle a transaction. XRP takes 3.6 seconds.

Explain how Ripple will distribute XRPs to banks.

The Ripple Net Accelerator program is designed to allocate up to $300 million to create incentives to accelerate adoption. It’s not dissimilar to the early days of Visa. The rough idea is “we’ll pay you Mr. Bank or Mrs. Bank to accelerate your use of this program. We’ll pay you in XRP.” If they don’t want XRP, they have an option to use US dollars.

To date we haven’t supplied any XRP. That’s not entirely true. We did an experiment 18 months ago. We gave a very small amount of XRP to a dozen banks to demonstrate the multilateral nature of XRP. It’s our vision of solving a liquidity problem for banks.

I’m not going to give it to them. It’s an incentive if X, Y, and Z happens.

How does Ripple’s pricing model work?

It’s one part software license, one part professional services and one part transaction fees.

The price depends on the size of banks and the number of transactions the bank intends to use Ripple for. These are big commitments. We’re not talking about 10 seat licenses from Salesforce that might cost a few thousand a year. You can add at least another zero.

Does the prospect of Central Banks introducing their own tokens keep you up at night?

No. We’ve had the good fortune to speak to dozens of central banks around the world. I don’t think central banks are going to give up fiat currency anytime in my lifetime.

What does a fed token really mean? Look at this piece of paper [holds up a $20 bill]—that’s already tokenized—it’s a unique $20 bill with a serial number on it. What does that mean you’re taking that bill an tokenizing it? I don’t know exactly what means. I hear people talk about it but I don’t know.

It’s been nearly a year since you became CEO. How’s your relationship with Ripple’s two co-founders?

Chris [Larsen] is 100% involved in the company. He’s the chair and I talk to him everyday. Chris’s vision for an internet of value is very much still the vision. I don’t really have a relationship with Jed [McCaleb] of any consequence. I’ve met Jed a bunch of times and I’m aware of what [his company] Stellar is up to, but that’s about it.

Is Ripple making money? How much of that comes from selling XRP?

Suffice to say we’re cash flow positive and that give us the ability to invest in a way that’s good for the eco-sytem and our company. Absolutely, we harvest some of the XRP. It’s very important for us to be very transparent in XRP markets so every quarter we publish a report that specifies how much we sold in the open market and to institutional buyers.

No, we wouldn’t be cash-flow positive without the XRP sales. It goes back to the fact XRP is a strategic weapon to invest in the ecosystem. It gives us flexibility to hire the best engineers in the world and to invest in the platform and the technology.

What do people fail to understand about Ripple?

The thing I think is often misunderstood about Ripple is people say “oh, Ripple is a centralized platform.” To me this is a legacy perspective. Ripple’s technology, IRP, is open source, XRP Ledger is open source.

If Ripple as a company went away, XRP would continue to trade. To me that’s the definition of decentralization. The price might go down because Ripple as a central player in the XRP eco-system invests in what’s good but I think there continues to be misunderstanding of centralization and decentralization. Though now that I’ve said all that I’m not sure Fortune readers give a shit—it’s more a technical thing.

Ripple has a grand vision of enabling an internet of value. For us, it’s how to catalyze that vision and connecting the repositories of value—those repositories are the banks. Those who in the crypto community who view them as the enemy are an obstacle to their success.

*Ripple says its market cap is actually $18.8B since the Coinmarketcap only counts circulating, not total, supply.