Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the company is “very close” to launching a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar during a fireside chat Wednesday at Korea Blockchain Week in Seoul, South Korea.
“We’re in a private closed beta,” Garlinghouse said. “It’s called Ripple USD. RLUSD is minted on that framework. We’ll definitely be launching it soon. It’s going to be months, not weeks.”
Last month, the cross-border payments company announced that it had begun testing RLUSD on two blockchain networks.In June, Ripple President Monica Long said stablecoins were designed to complement: Ripple (XRP)
-2.50%
token.
“When USDC was unpegged 18 months ago, we thought there was an opportunity for a trusted player who was already working with a number of financial institutions to enter that market,” Garlinghouse said.
The stablecoin market is currently dominated by USDT and USDC. According to The Block’s data dashboard, USDT accounts for about 70% of the total stablecoin supply, while USDC accounts for about 21%.
Not interested in US IPOs
When asked about a potential initial public offering (IPO) during a fireplace conversation, Garlinghouse said Ripple has “no interest” in listing in the U.S., largely because the SEC has a “pretty hostile” stance toward cryptocurrencies.
“The SEC approved Coinbase to go public in the U.S. and now they’re suing them for the same reason they approved it,” Garlinghouse said. “One of the first pieces of advice I give entrepreneurs who ask me about starting a crypto company is don’t incorporate in the U.S. It’s just going to cost you more in legal fees.”
Post-election outlook
Garlinghouse said cryptocurrencies will win no matter who wins the upcoming presidential election. “Whoever wins the U.S. presidential election, we’re going to see new leadership at the SEC,” the Ripple CEO said. “I think (Gary Gensler) has done a huge blow to his party. He’s a Democrat, and I think he’s done a big blow to them in this election cycle.”
Garlinghouse said Gensler’s friction with U.S. lawmakers He was unpopular on both sides of the aisle. “I heard it loud and clear at the Democratic convention. I heard it loud and clear at the Republican convention,” he added.
Ripple was ordered to pay a fine of $125 million, significantly lower than the $2 billion the SEC proposed last month. Final Court Decision In a years-long legal battle with regulators, Ripple and Garlinghouse hailed the court ruling as a victory for the company and the industry, adding that the court had earlier ruled that some of Ripple’s XRP sales did not violate securities laws.
“There aren’t that many companies that can actually stand up to bullying. The SEC has a lot of power, and it takes a lot of money and a lot of conviction to stand up to it,” Garlinghouse said in a fireside chat. “But we really believed from the beginning that we were on the right side of the law and we were on the right side of history.”
OpenSea implementation ‘unfortunate’
Garlinghouse also said the SEC’s recent enforcement action against NFT marketplace OpenSea was “unfortunate.”
“They’re taking the position that NFTs are securities. There’s already precedent for how art, traditional art, is not a security,” the Ripple CEO said. “Just because someone speculates that a piece of art is going to go up in price doesn’t make it a security. So I think[the SEC]is going to lose.”
“And I think it’s really unfortunate for OpenSea, because Ripple spent over $150 million defending itself. Not every company can do that,” Garlinghouse said.
However, Garlinghouse said he is more “optimistic” than ever about the next five years for cryptocurrencies. “We’re finally going to get legislative clarity again, not from the leadership of the SEC, but from our elected officials.” Garlinghouse pointed to FIT 21, or the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, as a legislative initiative driving positive clarity for cryptocurrencies in the United States.
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