Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, believes that the SEC’s focus on crypto enforcement is quite constrained. The top executive criticized the regulator for acting like “a hammer where everyone is a nail” in an interview with Bloomberg.
The comments come as the SEC is stepping up its enforcement efforts against crypto’s leading industry players, one of which also involved the blockchain payment company, Ripple.
The SEC filed a complaint against Ripple towards the end of 2020, accusing it of selling the XRP token as an unregistered security. Whatever the outcome of that case, which is still pending in federal court, the industry will undoubtedly be affected.
Garlinghouse believes that the long-drawn battle would finally have a resolution by this year.
“It’s been almost two and a half years since that litigation began. We’ve tried to move forward as quickly as we possibly could,” Garlinghouse said. “The litigation was fully briefed in front of federal court, and we do expect a decision certainly in 2023.”
The top executive reflected on how, initially, few people had come forward to help Ripple in its battle, but that had changed over the last two years.
I think people have come to realize that the SEC bringing the case against Ripple was not really the case about Ripple or about XRP. It was really about how the SEC was playing offense and attacking the whole industry.
Garlinghouse said that it is paramount to be thoughtful and set things right, given that the lawsuit’s outcome would be pivotal for the whole industry and could have a far-reaching impact.
He then came down hard on the agency and termed the latter’s stance as “not healthy”.
Ripple CEO Says Crypto Innovation Is Moving Away From US
The CEO of Ripple also said new innovations in the past were frequently viewed with mistrust. He used the late 1990s as an example when some critics demanded that the internet be banned because of its supposed illegal purposes.
Yet, he argued that at the time, the government established a regulatory structure that allowed investors and businesspeople to establish headquarters in the country, which benefited the U.S. geopolitically.
On the other side, he claims that the SEC’s measures targeting the crypto and blockchain enterprises have led to many of them moving offshore, which would hinder innovation in the nation.