Brad Garlinghouse said at Consensus 2021: “The likelihood that Ripple is a public company is very high at some point”
Speaking at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2021 event on Wednesday, Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse said Ripple still wants to go public. However, there is a high possibility that the lawsuit will affect the progress of the plan.
Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse
Ripple still wants to go public, but a potential landmark lawsuit is causing the delay
The SEC alleged in December 2020 that Ripple Labs conducted an ongoing and unregistered securities sale through the XRP token closely related to its brand. The case is still pending, with Ripple asking a US judge to force the SEC to disclose why it came to the conclusion that Bitcoin and Ether are commodities, not securities like XRP.
According to Garlinghouse, the plans first launched in early 2020 will have to wait until enforcement action from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finds a solution.
He said:
“The likelihood that Ripple is a public company is very high at some point. In the middle of an SEC lawsuit, you know, we need to get that closed out.”
In his recent CNBC interview, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse claims that XRP has a “zero inflation dynamic” because all existing tokens have been premined:
“All of the XRP that has ever been created has already been created, so it’s zero inflation dynamics.”
Even so, Garlinghouse also announced that the good news is that the court has approved Ripple’s request:
“The good news was the court did grant Ripple’s motion. All we’ve asked for, for two to three years, is that regulatory clarity, and so I think this is progress.”
Furthermore, the lawsuit with the SEC did not stop Ripple Labs from working with overseas partners to fulfill its mission of enabling fast, cross-border payments. Ripple has signed more than 20 contracts this year, with strong growth in Southeast Asia. In fact, the CEO thinks that only the US is the only country in the world that uses XRP as a security, every other country where Ripple works, sees it as a currency.
However, Garlinghouse admits the company has suffered a blow by suspending its relationship with US-based money transfer giant MoneyGram this year:
“MoneyGram and Ripple had a consequential relationship which represented a couple of billion dollars of ODL (On-Demand Liquidity) transactions. We’ve paused that partnership in hopes of getting regulatory clarity.”
In his signature smooth style, Garlinghouse also argued that the SEC’s case has the potential to have greater consequences, no matter which way the court rules.
When asked about the lawsuit brought against the company by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Garlinghouse reiterated Ripple’s defense that XRP is not an investment contract because the token’s holders cannot claim a stake in the company.
Furthermore, Garlinghouse continues to insist that Ripple does not control XRP, which is a widely disputed claim:
“Ripple doesn’t control XRP. XRP is an open-sourced technology, very analogous to Bitcoin. In contrast, XRP is very efficient in terms of the speed of transactions. It is a carbon-neutral blockchain.”
Traditionally, Garlinghouse is also bemoaning the lack of regulatory clarity by the U.S.
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