Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in a recent interview that the company is seeing historic growth, regardless of its rocky lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Speaking with Bloomberg Crypto, Garlinghouse says Ripple is effectively operating as if it’s already lost the lawsuit, which the SEC brought against the California-based firm in December of 2020 on allegations of selling XRP as a security.
But despite most XRP trading halted, and liquidity at virtually zero in the US, Garlinghouse said Ripple is growing “very quickly,” even through Q1 when crypto markets were very stagnant.
“Unfortunately, that growth is almost all coming from outside the United States, and we are hiring more and more people outside the United States. Our customer base is about 95% non-US payment companies,” he said.
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According to Garlinghouse, demand for Ripple’s core products that use XRP to facilitate cross-border payments has grown “8x year-over-year.”
“From our point of view, demand has skyrocketed, I just think it’s incredibly frustrating that here in the United States where we have lead innovation in so many different industries, we have an agency that is overreaching and really constraining competitiveness and hiring people here in the United States,” he said.
The SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple has faced numerous delays and has now been slated to end in 2023, save for any unexpected settlements. Both parties agreed to schedule opening briefs for summary judgment and expert challenges in August, and closing briefs shortly before Christmas this year. While painful for Ripple supporters and XRP bagholders, some legal experts following the case believe it’s actually a smart decision on Ripple’s part to at least secure a deadline to prevent any further delays.
As attorney James K Filan, known for tracking the suit says:
“Many people are questioning why Ripple agreed to this schedule. My gut feeling is that there was a trade off. A longer briefing schedule but the elimination of the pre-motion Rule 56 practice. If Ripple didn’t agree, there would be more scheduling disputes that in my estimation would have taken up even more time and Ripple would have lost that battle if the past is any guide. Then the motion schedule would have gone well into 2023. In my opinion, this was a very smart move by Ripple in locking in this schedule.”
