>> i'm glad you xds this question, digital assets, includes bitcoin and xrp, lightcoin, that's an asset class that's $750 billion. that's a lot. >> it has no underlying value though. >> that's an interesting question. >> it does to him. >> clearly. >> it's an interesting question, i can make the same argument about gold. >> right. >> underlying value of gold from a real productivity use, it's very, very small. the actual kind of industrial use of gold is very small. when i talk about what ripple is doing and how we think about xrp, it's about utility. what problem are you solving? >> so you create this system in which banks can trade to each other, using a ledger called the blockchain and xrp is the unit of monetary value that moves back and forth. i sell you a widget, i send me an xrp coin or something. is that -- have i got that right? >> basically. first product we would sell to the bank, connect directly. that actually doesn't -- that's us connecting directly. >> do we have to use xrp? >> no. >> why introduce that at all? because the value has gone up so much, you are now getting a

it is the one everybody knows but things like ripple and lightcoin.he fed titans. yvonne: you have been looking at the connection between the coin--bitcoin and gold. before theght andtightened was up bitcoin was at its most overbought levels. it looks like they reversed. things, gold, the supply is limited and cryptocurrency, it is parabolic, there is not limit. get back to where it was. tocoin could get back 20,000. he frenzyenzyhe -- t last year was at presidency. cryptocurrency is another story. bitcoin is a bit of an old dog in this space. yvonne: this is bloomberg. ♪ yvonne: welcome to daybreak: asia. asian stocks for the best we can almost six months as confidence and global growth sexy records on wall street. have.s. and south korea military drills during the upcoming winter olympics. i am betty lou in new york where it is just after 7:00 p.m. on this thursday. we are assessing the intel chip software fixes could slow down systems. hyundai roars into the self driving car race with a new global partnership. ♪ yvonne: we've been talking about equ

a theory him and like point -- ethereum and likely are both down -- lightcoin are also down.ok at the bottom of your screen. we are a little lower on the regional benchmark. if that is accurate or representative of what we are seeing across the asia-pacific. sophie is in malaysia with a look at markets early monday morning. sophie. we are seeing weakness when it comes to benchmark. that is representative of the mood in japan. the topics has been fluctuating all morning, this as the -- topix has been fluctuating as the yen gains against the dollar. that will continue with speculation rising over the boj. looking at the imap function on the terminal, when it comes to laggards among groups, you have discretionary utilities and energy leading laggards, then financials are the best .erformers today after stocks then the movers of the board, we have msn hd insurance and number climbing.g -- nomura shiva bank is slipping after down grants -- downgrades. we have new pond paint jumping after its longest -- largest shareholder is increasing their representation, so the stock is trading

you want to call it that but we're also watching what's happening with bitcoin, with either, with lightcoinething we'll keep a close eye on we're also watching the same price action on bitcoin vufutur. volumes light in the markets, but something to keep an eye on. if anybody out there has interest in what the prices are doing, the kinds of volumes associated with them, go to cnbc.com/cryptocurrency. we have a dashboard showing all those prices in one spot back over to you >> there are reports online, dom, that the chinese government has ordered, a quote, orderly exit from bitcoin mining unconfirmed by us, but on all the bitcoin sites. i wouldn't be surprised if that's part of what's pushing all these currencies lower if china, where we know the biggest mining operations are, are telling them they have to stop >> we have seen a lot of that volatility happen because of the way governments have gone through and tried to regulate or at least go through and impose their will, if you will. the last time we saw a massive drop in bitcoin prices was when we saw that chinese government intervention m