Ripple's CEO on the SEC fight: "Exit was tempting, but so is being right" 💸

Ripple Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse has disclosed that he and co-founder Chris Larsen seriously considered shutting the company down and distributing its $XRP holdings to shareholders after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple in 2020, ultimately deciding to fight a legal battle he said cost the firm roughly $150 million over four years. Speaking at the University of Kansas School of Business earlier this week, Garlinghouse said the two weighed winding Ripple down and handing its $XRP to shareholders on a pro rata basis, a path he described as the easier option against a government with "infinite power and resources." Dissolving the company would have effectively ended the case by ending the company, but the pair chose to litigate because closing would have cost hundreds of jobs. "I'm glad in retrospect, but that was not obvious at the time," he said.

The SEC sued Ripple in 2020, alleging it had sold $XRP as an unregistered security, and named Garlinghouse and Larsen personally in the complaint. Garlinghouse said he met agency officials four times between 2017 and 2019 without a lawyer present and was never told $XRP might be treated as a security, an experience he said shaped his view that the company had been denied clear rules. Ripple prevailed when Judge Analisa Torres ruled that $XRP in itself is not a security. The two sides settled in May last year, after the Trump administration installed new SEC leadership that has taken a more accommodating approach to crypto.