In a interview In a conversation with Fortune’s Andrew Nusca, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse provided 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.
A Ripple IPO is currently not on the cards
Garlinghouse has been outspoken about Ripple’s decision to delay an IPO amid challenging regulatory conditions. He stated, “We’ve said publicly that we have no plans to go public anytime soon. I mean, why would you do that in the current SEC? We’re not. I’m not very popular within the walls of the SEC.”
This sentiment underscores the friction between Ripple and the regulator, particularly following the historic court ruling in July last year that ruled that XRP is not a security. Instead of preparing for an IPORipple employed a different strategy, which Garlinghouse disclosed during the interview.
“I’ve always seen an IPO as a step in the journey, not the end of a journey. What we’ve done instead, and this is actually new news, which we haven’t made public, is we’ve done a series of offers where we buy back shares from investors and employees,” the Ripple CEO revealed, adding, “We are now in the middle of a new public offering and after we complete this, we will have bought back $4 billion worth of shares from our shareholders.”
Ripple vs SWIFT
Garlinghouse also commented on the company’s competitive position against SWIFT, the global standard for financial messaging and cross-border payments. He criticized the outdated nature of current wire transfer systems, noting, “The SWIFT network, I imagine everyone here at some point in their life has done a SWIFT transfer, a SWIFT transaction, which you call a wire transfer.” He emphasized the historical context: “The phrase wire transfer, the etymology of that is a telegram wire, right? It’s not a technology that came with the Internet.”
Garlinghouse championed Ripple’s transformative approach, which could significantly reduce the friction in global money transfers, similar to the advances we’re seeing in digital communications. “Are we competing with SWIFT? Yes, there are a lot of payment networks out there, and when I think about what Ripple is trying to do at its core, we’re trying to move value the way information moves today,” he explained. Drawing an analogy to the evolution of email protocols that connected siloed platforms, he underscored Ripple’s goal to facilitate similar interoperability across 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 fees but ultimately a favorable ruling for Ripple. “I’ve always considered it a currency, and we’ve been in a three-and-a-half year legal battle that culminated last summer. We won on the sort of core issue that XRP is not a security in and of itself,” he noted. But the legal bill for that victory was staggering. “But it was $150 million in legal bills along the way,” Garlinghouse revealed.
Speaking of the final remedies and sanctionsGarlinghouse expressed optimism about a speedy resolution of the lawsuit. “There are a couple of things that I would call cliffhangers that the judge would have to decide on soon, you know, a month, maybe less, or maybe two months. I don’t know, but I look forward to a full resolution.”
At the time of writing, XRP was trading at $0.58336.
Main image of X, chart from TradingView.com