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Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will not allow XRP-based I am confident that they will give the green light to exchange traded funds (ETFs). legal disputes with Wall Street regulators;
Is an XRP ETF coming soon?
Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse believes the approval of Spot Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange traded funds will open the door to other cryptocurrencies like XRP. Garlinghouse said the SEC reluctantly approved the listing of BTC and ETH ETFs by prominent Wall Street firms on U.S. stock exchanges, even though the SEC clearly didn’t want to.
Earlier this month, Bitwise filed an application with the SEC for an XRP ETF that would give investors direct exposure to XRP without directly owning or purchasing the asset. The filing came as a surprise as Ripple has been embroiled in a legal battle with the SEC since December 2020. Shortly after Bitwise’s move, Canary Capital, a new asset management company founded by former Valkyrie Funds co-founder Stephen McClurg, similarly launched an application to launch a Spot XRP ETF.
Garlinghouse confidently told Bloomberg on Wednesday that the introduction of an XRP ETF is “just inevitable,” adding that there is “demand from institutions and retailers wanting access to this asset class.”
The Ripple chief also predicted that spot XRP investment products will “do quite well” due to the flourishing community around the XRP ecosystem.
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The head of Ripple believes that exchange-traded funds are the main bullish catalyst for cryptocurrencies, including XRP, noting that these instruments are putting “upward pressure” on cryptocurrencies prices.
The battle between Ripple and SEC
It is worth mentioning that the SEC may not approve the XRP ETF anytime soon considering the ongoing dispute with Ripple. Back in 2020, authorities slammed the company with an eye-popping $1.3 billion lawsuit for selling unregistered securities in the form of XRP.
Last year, Ripple won a major court victory against the SEC when a judge ruled that programmatic sales of XRP to retail investors were not securities. But a judge ruled that $728 million worth of institutional sales contracts constituted unregistered securities, news that was widely hailed as a victory.
In response to this ruling, the SEC sought a hefty fine of $2 billion against Ripple. To the chagrin of regulators, a New York court subsequently ordered the company to pay a fine of just $125 million, but this was once again a huge victory for Ripple and the crypto industry as a whole. It was advertised.
The SEC recently filed an appeal of the judge’s decision. However, regulators have not challenged the controversial non-security status of the XRP token.
The price of XRP is still down 84.5% from its lifetime high of $3.40 hit in January 2018, according to data tracked by CoinGecko. The seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading at $0.5297 at the time of writing, reflecting a loss of $10.3. % of last month.
