Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple Labs, has claimed that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has inconsistently imposed regulations on companies that handle cryptocurrencies in the country.
Speaking to Wired’s editor-in-chief at the Collision conference in Toronto on Thursday, Garlinghouse pointed to Ripple’s ongoing legal battle with the SEC, in which the federal regulator has alleged that company executives conducted an “unregistered digital asset security offering” with the sale of XRP tokens. Garlinghouse referenced the SEC’s approval of Coinbase’s public offering in April 2021 despite the cryptocurrency exchange listing XRP at the time.
“The SEC now seems to take the position when they sued us that ‘XRP is a security and always has been,’ but they approved Coinbase going public even though Coinbase is not a registered broker,” Ripple CEO said. “There are some contradictions here from the SEC almost not, within their organization, knowing left hand, right hand.” Garlinghouse added:
“The SEC, instead of doing the hard work to define a new set of clear rules, a new set of clear regulations […] instead they decide that we are going to do regulation through control, which is not efficient and I really think it has stifled innovation in the United States.”
Garlinghouse, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, and CTO David Schwartz have filed complaints against US regulators before and after the SEC filed its lawsuit against the company in December 2020. Larsen suggested in October 2020 that Ripple might consider leaving the United States behind given many authorities’ policy of “regulation through app” – the firm is currently headquartered in San Francisco, but also has offices in Dubai. and Wyoming-.
“I do not think that [las criptomonedas sean] Wild West at all,” Garlinghouse said, in response to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s characterization of the space. “I think cryptocurrency is certainly a volatile asset class […] All asset classes have a certain volatility – I don’t think it’s a regulator’s job to determine how that volatility should be accessed by consumers, by businesses.”
“I don’t think it’s the wild west at all.” Ripple CEO @bgarlinghouse thinks the SEC isn’t painting crypto in the right light. pic.twitter.com/iO30gVafTn
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) June 23, 2022
The court case between Ripple and the SEC is still ongoing, with many hoping the results will set a precedent for the regulatory treatment of cryptocurrencies in the United States.
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