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Ripple Chief Executive Officer, Brad Garlinghouse said that if his company loses the lawsuit brought by US regulators, XRP as a cryptocurrency will remain tradable. Garlinghouse was hosted by Axios, a documentary-news program on HBO.
The SEC have sued Ripple over illegally trading in unregistered securities in December of last year. According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, XRP is a security. Securites and shares are subject to different regulations than cryptocurrency. As expected, Garlinghouse disagrees and said the following:
“If you own a security, it gives you ownership of a company, right? If Ripple goes away, XRP’s gonna keep trading.“
Garlinghouse further said that the US is the only country in the world that claims XRP could be a security. The SEC charges led to a lawsuit being filed in December and it is no up to Ripple to defend that XRP is not an unregistered security.
Garlinghouse also fears that the SEC case will negatively affect the whole crypto industry:
“This isn’t just bad for Ripple. It’s bad for crypto broadly in the United States and it’s driving that activity, it’s driving that entrepreneurial activity outside of the United States. I think that definitely bodes poorly for the crypto industry at large.”
On Friday, Ripple landed a victory in court in their legal battle with Tetragon Financial Group Ltd. The British asset manager was the largest contributor to a Series C funding round with $175 million and had sued Ripple to buy back its shares after the SEC filed their lawsuit. Tetragon also tried to block Ripple from using cash or any other of their liquid assets until the buyback was made.
Tetragon’s request was rejected by a Delaware court. The judge assigned to the case agreed with Ripple’s defence that XRP has not been identified as an unregistered security until the SEC case is resolved.
Ripple is clear on its position that XRP is not to be considered a security. Its lawyers have recently stated that:
“The Commission is completely wrong.”
A verdict on the SEC lawsuit is expected to be still months away, at least not until August.