Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse advised cryptocurrency startups not to open a business in the United States in order not to be harassed by regulators.
Speaking at the Dubai Fintech Week conference, Garlinghouse announced that he intends to expand Ripple’s activities in Dubai and promised that the next conference in November will be held there. Garlinghouse said that most of the company’s employees are located in London, Singapore and Dubai, outside the United States, because conditions have been created in these cities for the development of the latest technologies.
Then Garlinghouse took the opportunity to comment on the litigation with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claiming that XRP is an unregistered security, so the coin should fall under the jurisdiction of the SEC.
The head of Ripple believes that the trial with the company is politically motivated: SEC Chairman Gary Gensler is trying to assert his authority over the crypto space. Garlinghouse mentioned a video with Gensler from 2018, when he worked as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then Gensler told the students that more than a third of cryptocurrencies are considered commodities.
“What is happening in the USA now is sad. The country puts politics above regulatory rules, and this is not a good solution. The United States is definitely stuck. We spent about $200 million on a lawsuit that people thought was nonsense from the very beginning. The first piece of advice I would give to any cryptocurrency entrepreneur is not to start a business in the US,” Garlinghouse said.
He added that cryptocurrencies can be regulated in different ways, but this requires clear definitions of digital assets. And now even the SEC chairman won’t say what it is: Gensler didn’t consider cryptocurrencies securities before, but now he won’t say the same thing anymore, complains Garlinghouse.
