David Schwartz, Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer, said it could become increasingly difficult to open new crypto-centric businesses in America during an interview with Cointelegraph.
Right now Ripple is facing a lawsuit filed by the SEC, which in December last year suddenly sued the company: the institution claims that, through the sale of XRP, CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen have conducted an unregulated stock offering. Schwartz admits that he has always been aware of the possibility of repressive action against Ripple by the regulators: all companies operating in the sector are perfectly aware of the risk.
David Schwartz, Ripple Labs Chief Technology Officer, said US regulators’ response to the cryptocurrency industry could ultimately help XRP, but also harm companies that are still expanding. According to Ripple’s CTO, crypto companies looking to start a business in the United States face a daunting regulatory environment. He has in fact defined US regulators as “overlapping regimes”, in which bodies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission may never reach a consensus on the nature of digital assets.
According to Ripple’s CTO, crypto companies looking to start a business in the United States face a daunting regulatory environment. He has in fact defined US regulators as “overlapping regimes”, in which bodies such as Securities and Exchange Commission, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission may never reach a consensus on the nature of digital assets.
Since SEC announced the lawsuit, numerous cryptocurrency exchanges have either suspended XRP trading or removed the token entirely from their platforms. MoneyGram, a global money transfer service, has ended its partnership with Ripple. Ripple responded to the SEC’s allegations by arguing that XRP is not that different from Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH), two assets that the regulator classifies as assets and not equities. Schwartz also points out that the token was released in 2013, but that SEC only filed a lawsuit against Ripple eight years later despite the nature of the project being largely unchanged.
