Ripple CEO celebrates “strongest year ever” and laughs at XRP lawsuit
“Of all the shitty things in 2020, this was certainly one to cap the year Rolling on the floor laughing.”
Ripple Labs chief executive Brad Garlinghouse has doubled down on his holiday cheer with a focus on the SEC v. Ripple lawsuit anniversary. The individual defendant has gone to Twitter again to bash the SEC once more and announce Ripple had its strongest year ever in 2021.
FinanceFeeds also covered the prior statement on the XRP lawsuit anniversary, where he said the SEC complaint was Jay Clayton’s attempt at picking winners and trying to limit US innovation in the crypto industry to BTC and ETH.
“All of this growth came from outside the US for (sigh) obvious reasons”
Garlinghouse’s most recent statement is a 10-part thread reminding the public the SEC filed the lawsuit against Ripple, Chris Larsen, and himself a year ago today, “alleging that XRP – a public crypto that has been trading on the open market since 2013 – should have been registered as a security”.
“Of all the shitty things in 2020, this was certainly one to cap the year Rolling on the floor laughing. But what I said then remains (painfully) true today: this is an attack on crypto in the US, not just Ripple.”
The chief executive added that this year has been a watershed year for crypto as the potential to onboard billions of people has never been so clear. He also praised the growing number of builders joining the industry and the decline of “maximalism” – the belief is that one digital asset alone will be needed in the future and is superior to all else. Most maximalists support Bitcoin.
As for the performance of Ripple Labs, Garlinghouse said 2021 is Ripple’s strongest year ever. XRP-based On-Demand Liquidity payments account for 25% of volume across RippleNet, and ODL transactions are up 25x from Q3 2020, and 130% QoQ.
The original ODL volumes announcement in late October mentions how the regulatory uncertainty in the United States essentially halted ODL flows in that market. International ODL volume, however, continued to surge, growing more than 25x since Q3 last year.
“Not to mention new ODL corridors like Japan and UAE, and our CBDC solution built on a private version of the public XRPL partnering with Bhutan and Palau! All of this growth came from outside the US for (sigh) obvious reasons…”
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SEC’s “strategic ambiguity” risks driving Web3 away
The XRP-based trading halt in the United States in 2021 led Garlinghouse to change the topic to the SEC and his concern for the agency’s expanding remit as it could drive “Web3” innovation out of the country.
“GaryGensler seeks to expand its remit, he has taken an aggressively anti-crypto approach and companies are already moving outside the US. Web2 was built with many American companies, but Web3 (or whatever we want to call it)? Ignoring its prior statements, the SEC today won’t answer questions about the legal status of ETH, much less anything else. Is the agency actually living up to its mission of protecting investors w/ regulation by enforcement & what @HesterPeirce calls “strategic ambiguity”?
“Calling crypto the “Wild West” is a farce – most are complying with financial regulators globally. This industry shouldn’t be punished for asking for regulatory clarity & regulation that is consistently applied with a level playing field […] This holiday season – let’s make the time to reach out to our elected officials in Congress so they understand the need to act now. I hope the industry gets some answers instead of another lump of coal”, he concluded.
In his first anniversary statement, he warned “the battle is just beginning”.
