Key Takeaways
- Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse claims he is ready to settle with the SEC, but puts out a condition
- According to Garlinghouse, if the SEC brings clarity on the status of the XRP, they can talk about a settlement
- Ripple’s native token, the XRP is 73% bellow its all time high of $3.40
YEREVAN (CoinChapter.com) — On Sept. 24, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse claimed that Ripple will be willing to settle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, Garlinghouse put up a contingency.
In an interview with Charlie Gasparino and Liz Claman on Fox Business’s ‘The Claman Countdown,’ the Ripple CEO did not rule out the possibility of a settlement in the iconic Ripple Vs SEC case.
To Charlie Gasparino’s direct question if Ripple plans to settle, Garlinghouse sent the ball back into the SEC court.
“To the extend we can find a constructive way forward with the SEC, of course, we want to find it. There is no scenario though that we are going to settle unless there is absolute certainty about what XRP is,”
he said.
According to the Ripple CEO, it is very clear how Ripple and people are using XRP and the technologies. To his mind, they do not represent securities at all.
Moreover, Garlinghouse indicated that they do not intend to back down against the SEC as Coinbase did. The company will continue to “educate the market and the judge involved” in the case about Ripple and XRP.
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Ripple CEO claims SEC is picking winners and losers
Drawing parallels between other companies in the cryptocurrency industry, Garlinghouse alleged unfair treatment by the Securities Exchange Commission.
Ripple’s advantage over many of the other market players is that the XRP is fast and cost effecting in its transactions. If one were to treat XRP as a security, then the company would be subject to a whole lot of regulations and costs.
“The magic of what is XRP is how incredibly fast and how incredibly cost-efficient it is for cross-border payments…If you start treating it as a security, the costs and speed change dramatically… That is an example where the SEC is in effect picking winners and losers of this new industry. That is not the role of the Government,”
CEO Garlinghouse said.
The topic revolved around former SEC Chair Jay Clayton.
Observers accused Clayton of fraud over his handling of various cryptocurrency issues while Chairman of the SEC.
While Chairman, Clayton declared that Bitcoin /9BTC) did not qualify as a security, causing its value to rise.
At the end of his tenure at the commission, Clayton filed the case against Ripple, causing XRP to fall by 60%. Upon leaving the SEC, Clayton joined One River Asset Management, a cryptocurrency hedge fund that is focused on Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
The case indicates a conflict of interest on behalf of the SEC as Clayton went after Ripple right before completing his tenure.
Remarking on it, Garlinghouse agreed it raised suspicion.
“The timing stinks. It’s not a good look,”
he added.
In 2018, the SEC had clarified, that Ethereum (ETH) was not a security. However, when it came to the XRP, their stance surprisingly differed.
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XRP continues to struggle
Following the disputed lawsuit filed by the SEC against Ripple, its native asset, the XRP nosedived. Having shed over 60% at once, it sent the cryptocurrency industry into turmoil.
While the company claims to be fighting for the whole industry, the lawsuit has left traders in limbo. Thousands of XRP traders have now filed a lawsuit against the SEC for allowing XRP to trade for over 8 years before filing the lawsuit. As a result, they are now having to endure the losses of the SEC’s failure.
In the meantime, XRP is currently trading at $0.94128. That is a massive 73% low from its all-time high of $3.40.
With the XRP token struggling, the outcome of the law case will determine if Ripple can hope to remain relevant.
