Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse reaffirmed that his company holds a substantial amount of XRP and remains deeply committed to the token’s future—but stressed that Ripple has no control over it due to its open-source nature.
Speaking at the KU School of Business, Garlinghouse argued that XRP more closely resembles Bitcoin than a security tied to a single entity. Unlike Ripple’s equity shares issued during private funding rounds in 2012, 2015, and 2016, XRP does not confer any ownership stake in the company.
“There’s Ripple, cares about a lot. We own a lot of XRP, but we can’t control it because it’s open source,” he said.
This distinction was central to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) 2020 lawsuit against Ripple, which alleged the company sold unregistered securities through XRP distributions. Garlinghouse strongly contested this characterization, asserting that XRP functions nothing like traditional corporate stock.
“That’s owning Apple stock,” he explained when describing what constitutes a real security. “It wasn’t even close.”
Between 2017 and 2019, Garlinghouse met with the SEC four times—without legal counsel—believing the discussions were purely technical explanations of Ripple’s technology. He noted that at no point did SEC officials indicate XRP might be deemed a security, a silence he later called misleading once the lawsuit was filed.
The SEC sued both Ripple and Garlinghouse personally in 2020 over XRP sales he made as an individual. He criticized the timing as “distasteful” and “unethical,” especially after the agency later offered to drop the case against him while continuing its action against Ripple. The SEC ultimately agreed to dismiss the charges against Garlinghouse but maintained its suit against the company.
The four-year legal battle cost Ripple approximately $150 million. Although Ripple prevailed in court, the SEC initially signaled plans to appeal. However, Garlinghouse noted a shift in regulatory tone following the appointment of a new SEC chair whom he described as “far more constructive toward the crypto industry.”
He reiterated his long-standing position: the crypto community largely seeks clear, forward-looking regulations—not retroactive enforcement actions.