in interview In an interview with Fortune’s Andrew Noska, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse provides an overview of the company’s strategic roadmap, its cautious approach to an initial public offering (IPO), and Ripple’s competitive advantage over the traditional SWIFT network.
Ripple IPO is not on the table right now
Garlinghouse was candid about Ripple’s decision to delay its IPO amid a challenging regulatory environment. “We’ve publicly stated that we have no imminent plans to go public. I mean, why would you do that in the current SEC? We’re not. I’m not very well known within the walls of the SEC,” he said.
The sentiment underscores the friction between Ripple and regulators, especially after a landmark court ruling in July last year that XRP was not a security. Instead of preparing for an IPO, Ripple has pursued a different strategy, which Garlinghouse outlined in the interview.
“I’ve always viewed an IPO as a step in the journey, not the end of the journey. What we did instead, and this is actually new news that we haven’t shared publicly, is we made a series of takeover offers where we were buying shares from investors and employees,” the Ripple CEO revealed, adding, “We’re now in the middle of another takeover offer and after that is done we will buy back $4 billion of shares from our shareholders.”
Ripple vs Swift
Garlinghouse also commented on the company’s competitive position against SWIFT, the global standard for cross-border financial messaging and payments. He criticized the antiquated nature of current wire transfer systems, noting that “the SWIFT network, I imagine everyone here at some point in your life has done a SWIFT transfer, a SWIFT-backed transaction, you could call it a wire transfer.” He highlighted the historical context, “The term wire transfer, it’s a wire transfer, right, it’s not the technology that’s moved with the internet.”
Garlinghouse championed Ripple’s transformative approach, which could dramatically reduce the friction involved in global financial transfers, similar to the advances we’ve seen in digital communications. “Are we competing with SWIFT? Yes, there are a lot of payment networks, and when I think about the core of what Ripple is trying to do, we’re trying to allow value to move the way information moves today,” he explained. Drawing an analogy to the evolution of email protocols that connect isolated platforms, he emphasized Ripple’s goal of facilitating similar interoperability between diverse payment networks.
When will the XRP lawsuit end?
Garlinghouse also touched on the lengthy legal battle with the SEC over XRP’s status, which resulted in significant legal costs but ultimately a ruling in Ripple’s favor. “I’ve always looked at it as a currency, and we were engaged in a legal battle that lasted three and a half years and culminated last summer. We won on a kind of fundamental case that XRP is not a security per se,” he said. But the legal bill for that win was huge. “But it was $150 million in legal bills along the way,” Garlinghouse revealed.
Speaking about the final proceedings and sentencing, Garlinghouse expressed optimism that the lawsuit would be resolved soon. “There are a couple of things that I call ‘triggering events’ that the judge should rule on soon, maybe in a month or two,” he said. “I can’t tell, but I look forward to a full resolution.”
At the time of publishing this report, XRP was trading at $0.58336.
Featured image by X, chart by TradingView.com