What’s Ripple CEO’s take on the biggest XRP hypothetical?

It’s been an interesting few months for Ripple and XRP, with the two at the center of a contentious lawsuit filed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission back in December. With the two parties failing to reach a settlement yet, many in the community expect the court’s ruling to come down heavily in one side’s favor.

The same was touched upon by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, one of the defendants in the said case, during an interview with Julia Chatterley. When asked what would happen if Ripple happens to lose the lawsuit, the exec responded,

“The good news for Ripple is we’ve continued to sign customers. We’ve signed over 20 new institutions across the world as customers since the SEC filed the lawsuit and I think we’ll continue to see the network grow more rapidly among non-U.S customers.”

According to Garlinghouse, Ripple is open to “contingency plans” and “alternative solutions” that might include replacing XRP, if needed, in the U.S.

“That certainly could be part of the solution. I think there is certain strangeness that SEC has kind of picked winners here. It said that Bitcoin is not a security, it said that Ether is not a security, but really everything else, I think, is kind of at risk. Particularly, given what they have done in the lawsuit against Ripple. But, you know, we could do that.”

A similar question was responded to by popular attorney Jeremy Hogan during a recent interview. Citing the ruling in the Kik Interactive case as the “worst-case scenario,” Hogan argued that a similar judgment will definitely not be a deathblow to Ripple, and XRP will certainly not fall down to “nothing.”

Garlinghouse also took issue with the SEC’s accusations that the exec and the firm haven’t been as transparent as they have publicly stated. In response to the same, the exec asserted that both Ripple and himself are being more transparent “than anyone” in the cryptocurrency industry.

It should be noted, however, that the CEO refused to publicly address some damning allegations about him netting $150 million from XRP sales.

“I’m really looking forward to the facts coming out in the court case. You know this is something that I haven’t commented on publicly because the wheels of justice kind of move slowly. It’s important that we get the facts out. We heard one side of the story from the SEC.”

The interview in question also touched upon stablecoins and DeFi. When asked whether the growth in these sectors poses a threat, the Ripple exec answered in the negative, reiterating that the blockchain firm’s focused on solving a cross-border payments problem.

Ripple introduced a private version of the XRP Ledger for central banks recently. In its white paper titled “The Future of CDBCs,” the blockchain company wrote about how XRP could serve as a bridge for different central bank digital currencies.

“One example of a neutral bridge is the digital asset XRP, which can be used to bridge two different currencies quickly and efficiently.”