The CEO of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse, has been airing his thoughts on the state of the cryptocurrency market and regulations, and a grudge seems to have surfaced over the financial regulator’s approach to Ethereum..
In his speech at the virtual conference DC Fintech Week on October 21, Ripple’s boss stated that Ethereum had received a regulatory green light allowing it to outperform his company’s XRP token.
The US Securities Market Commission has been after Ripple over claims that XRP is an unregistered security.. In January, Ripple submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the SEC demanding to know why it did not regard ETH as a security. Six months later In July, a district judge allowed the company to depose a former SEC official who declared in 2018 that ETH was not a security.
Garlinghouse clearly feels that his company has been harmed and that Ethereum’s subsequent success is due, at least in part, to more favorable treatment from the SEC.. He stated that this is affecting the market, adding:
“In recent years, XRP was the second most valuable digital asset. As it became apparent that the SEC had given ETH a hall pass, ETH, it has obviously been something of a blast and that clarity has helped. “
XRP was the second largest cryptoasset by market capitalization at the end of December 2017. It has currently slipped to seventh place., while Ethereum has held second place ever since.
Garlinghouse also stated that the SEC has been taking an aggressive stance against cryptocurrencies., and a sample is his recent actions against his own company and Coinbase. Commenting on Ripple’s battle with the financial regulator, he said that the SEC claims to be protecting consumers, but:
“You have almost 50,000 US people who have XRP, who are trying to sue the SEC for ‘protecting’ them.”
Earlier this month, A United States district judge ruled that people who own the company’s XRP token could not participate as defendants in the lawsuit..
The SEC’s request to extend the deadline to complete the discovery in its ongoing lawsuit with Ripple Labs and its executives has been granted. and extended to January 14, 2022.
Ripple alleges that any further delay in the resolution of this case “will cause serious harm to the interests of the defendants and XRP holders”.
The court acknowledged this, but stated that the “Additional time requested by the SEC will not affect the calendar to resolve the case”.
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