Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse has classified the charges on his company brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as an “assault on crypto at large.” In a recent blog post, he outlined that the Commission is wrong and that the payment processor will prevail in the legal battle.
Following rumors of SEC charges against Ripple, the Commission made it official yesterday. The agency alleged that the payment processor had conducted a $1.3 billion unregistered security offering.
Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse responded to the allegations in a post and doubled-down on his belief that the company is “on the right side of the law and of history.”
After reviewing the SEC’s documents, the firm’s lawyers concluded that the agency is “completely wrong on the facts and law, and we are confident we will ultimately prevail before a neutral fact-finder.”
They explained that Ripple’s native digital asset, the XRP token, operates similarly to BTC and ETH, which the SEC deems as currencies. Furthermore, other US government branches, such as the Justice Department and the Treasury’s FinCEN, have previously referred to XRP as a currency.
Keeping in mind that XRP is traded on numerous global exchanges, the lawyers asserted that transactions with the token “fall outside the scope of the federal securities laws.”
Garlinghouse also reaffirmed a recent narrative that he breached that there’s a significant “lack of regulatory clarity” for the cryptocurrency industry in the US. He believes that the SEC has dropped the ball as it has “sat back and watched for years” without decisive actions.
While Garlinghouse and Ripple’s Executive Chairman Chris Larsen have the option to settle separately and put “all of this behind us,” the duo outlined that they will “aggressively fight” the allegations and prove their case.
Although the case is against Ripple, Garlinghouse believes that this is just the first of many future SEC attacks on the entire cryptocurrency industry:
“Let me be clear: Ripple, Chris, and I may be the ones named in the filing, but this is an assault on crypto at large. In this case, XRP is a proxy for every other ‘altcoin’ in the space. From there, you have a snowball effect; this isn’t good news for any market maker, exchanges, etc. This sets a terrible industry-wide precedent for any company working with a digital asset.”
It’s worth noting that XRP has felt the adverse consequences of the SEC allegations. Ripple’s native cryptocurrency has dived by more than 20% in a day.
