Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s participation in the lawsuit filed by the SEC against the San Francisco-based blockchain firm earlier has kept the CEO in the news a lot over the past few months. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Brad Garlinghouse also touched upon what he expects for Bitcoin and Ethereum in the future.
“The timing of the lawsuit doesn’t make sense.”
According to Garlinghouse, the aforementioned lawsuit’s timing doesn’t make sense, especially since XRP, the crypto-asset at the center of the case, has been trading on the marketplace for eight years now. In fact, the Ripple exec also pointed out the absurdity of former SEC Chair Jay Clayton deciding to go after the blockchain firm the day before the end of his tenure, adding that this was a move that came in for a lot of criticism. “The USA is the only country on the planet that views XRP as a security,” the CEO added. He concluded his point by stressing the need for crypto-regulatory clarity in the country.
Ripple CEO comments on bitcoin’s massive energy consumption.
Ripple CEO also noted that he is hopeful that as a new administration comes into the SEC, there is an opportunity to revisit some of those conversations and bring more regulatory clarity in the crypto industry. While talking about the leading cryptocurrency, bitcoin, Ripple CEO said, “as Bitcoin’s price goes up, the energy consumption, the carbon footprint of PoW mining that happens to validate transactions, continues to scale aggressively. 1 Bitcoin transaction is equivalent to 75G of gasoline being burnt.” Bitcoin has faced a lot of criticism lately over the use of its energy consumption.
