Ripple CEO Garlinghouse Upset By Crypto Regulation in the U.S.

Brad Garlinghouse – the CEO of Ripple – is rather frustrated with how crypto regulation is dealt with in the United States, and he is upset by how unclear the rules tend to be.

Ripple CEO Discusses Lack of Regulatory Clarity

Ripple has been under fire for the past few months due to a lawsuit initiated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company garnered billions through a token sale of XRP – the official cryptocurrency of Ripple – that the SEC says was illegal. It has now filed charges against the company and is demanding certain penalties be paid.

Defending his company, Garlinghouse claims that Ripple has been deemed a currency and not a security by several leading financial outlets in the United States and abroad. Thus, he says that the token sale was not illegal and that the SEC needs to bugger off.

In any case, the situation is clearly the result of serious misunderstandings when it comes to crypto rules in the United States, and it is not like situations like this have not come up before. In an interview with CNBC, Garlinghouse said that one of the big problems is that the agencies put in charge of crypto regulation are not doing their jobs correctly, yet everyone seemingly wants to blame traders for all the mishaps that occur.

He explained:

There is a misunderstanding of how these technologies can be applied. In the United States, there has been a lack of regulatory clarity. Other countries, G20 markets, they have invested the time and energy, either through legislation or rulemaking, to provide that clarity and certainty, which allows investors to participate and entrepreneurs to build.

A Lot of Confusion in This Country

One of the arguments against Ripple is the fact that it still owns most of the XRP units out there. The company sells small amounts each month and grows its revenue, which has ultimately attracted hoards of criticism in recent years. Garlinghouse defended this move, saying:

XRP is an open-source technology very analogous to bitcoin, but the SEC is making the assertion that these are investment contracts… That Ripple sales of XRP to our customers is an investment contract. That is not true. If you buy XRP, you do not have ownership of Ripple and ironically, you have XRP owners who have tried to sue the SEC for even bringing the case.

Nevertheless, the arena of crypto regulation remains so unclear in this country that certain presidential candidates ran on the idea that they would somehow make them more understandable in the future. The 2020 election saw two candidates – Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Yang – say that should they win the White House at the end of that year they would make the crypto regulations in the U.S. easier to comprehend. Either way, neither man was able to accomplish this feat.

Source: Read Full Article