By Solomon Odunayo
Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of the San Francisco based cross-border payment firm, Ripple, has in an interview with the Bitcoin maximalist, Anthony Pompliano, revealed what would become of the payment company if its native token XRP is declared a security by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In the course of the conversation with Pompliano, Ripple CEO stated that XRP being declared a security by SEC would affect Ripple’s business in the United States. However, he pointed out that the company’s stateside business would remain unaffected.
It can be recalled that Ripple is considering moving its headquarters to a region with a conducive regulatory environment. During the interview, Garlinghouse once again discussed the firm’s intention to move its business away from the United States.
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Howbeit, the CEO remains resolute that the firm’s operation will not change even if XRP is declared a security. He then went further to state that Ripple’s future in the United States depends on Regulators’ interest:
A lot of what Ripple does today in the United States, we could continue to do, no problem. A component of what we do today is our customers of ODL (On-Demand Liquidity) they buy XRP from us. If XRP, in fact, is a security, we would have to get a broker-dealer license. Anybody who’s buying and selling XRP in the United States would have to get a broker-dealer license.”
“The reality is what we’d probably do is just say, ‘Okay, in order to provide certainty and clarity on a going-forward basis we would want to look at other markets and other jurisdictions where there is that clarity.’ Earlier in this conversation, I highlighted the UK. I highlighted Japan. I highlighted Singapore.”
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“Frankly, most of our customers are non-US customers by a long shot today and so we could absolutely continue to build the business and grow. It’s just we would no longer be a US taxpayer where we paid probably order magnitude of a couple hundred million dollars in taxes here in the United States and I just think that it doesn’t serve the US agenda to drive us offshore.”