thecoinrepublic.com
Ripple will contemplate the possibility of an initial public offering once its lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission gets over, disclosed the CEO Brad Garlinghouse in an interview with CNBC.
The company’s cross-border payments are facilitated through XRP, the sixth-largest cryptocurrency in the world. The conversion of fiat to XRP reduces the cost and increases the speed of the transaction. Then, the XRP is again converted back to fiat.
The SEC has alleged that Ripple, Garlinghouse, and Chris Larsen, the executive chairman, were involved in an illegal securities offering via the sales of XRP. Ripple, in response, has said that the digital coin need not be treated as a security, a label that would bring it under strict regulations.
The lawsuit has been running for 15 months, and Ripple is hopeful that it will end this year. The company will then analyze a public listing.
During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Garlinghouse told CNBC that he wants to get certainty and clarity in the United States with the SEC. The CEO further said that the SEC does not instigate further delays in the process than they already have.
These comments by the CEO came at a time when the decline in cryptocurrency prices scooped out billions of dollars of cash from the market. As per the data from CoinGecko, XRP has been down 42% in the past 30 days.
The effects of the crash can also be seen in crypto-related stocks. Shares of leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase have dropped to 75% this year, while Robinhood’s stocks dropped 50%.
Garlinghouse claims that despite all this, the business continues to flourish. He revealed that the volume for its cross-border payments product that uses XRP called On-Demand Liquidity, which was $1 billion in the same period last year, has amounted to $8 billion in the first quarter of the year.
Garlinghouse also revealed that the majority of the growth experienced by them is majorly from the United States. He added that it could continue for a while if we don’t get the certainty and clarity they want in the U.S.