Ripple CEO warns they may relocate due to “hostile” US regulations

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Ripple CEO warns they may relocate due to “hostile” US regulations

By Benson Toti - min read

Chris Larsen expressed his frustrations at the US’ overly strict regulations

Chris Larsen, the co-founder and executive chairman of the tech giant Ripple Labs, has revealed the company is considering moving its headquarters overseas due to the overly strict regulatory stance of the federal government towards the crypto industry.

“You want to be in this business, you probably should be going somewhere else. To be honest with you, we’re even looking at relocating our headquarters to a much more friendly jurisdiction,” he stated.

Larsen revealed this news at the LA Blockchain Summit on Tuesday, October 6. He pointed out that almost every country, excluding the US, is developing favourable systems to regulate the cryptocurrency industry.

The executive also said that the UK and Singapore are at the top of the list of likely new locations for the company, which is currently based in San Francisco.

Ripple has been embroiled in a legal fight since May 2018 with investors who claim the company violated state and federal securities laws with their cryptocurrency, XRP. In August 2019, the group of investors filed an amended complaint, stating that XRP tokens are unregistered securities under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s guidance.

The firm responded that while it does own a large amount of XRP, the network that is used to settle all of the XRP transactions is decentralised. In a motion that the company filed to dismiss the lawsuit last September 2019, Ripple stated that “there is no common enterprise between Ripple and XRP purchasers; there was no promise that Ripple would help generate profits for XRP holders, and the XRP Ledger is decentralised”.

Ripple also argued that the lawsuit that the investors filed came too late.

“Under Plaintiff’s own allegations, Defendants offered XRP to the public throughout 2013 through 2015. Accordingly, the three-year statute of repose expired as of 2016 (three years after the sales cited in the May 2015 settlement) and in no case later than May 2018 (three years after the May 2015 settlement agreement in which “Defendants acknowledged that they had sold XRP to the general public,” the filing read.

Finally, Ripple concluded by saying it did not sell its XRP tokens to the plaintiffs directly. The company stated that aside from their own sales, “countless other XRP holders” sell the cryptocurrency on exchanges, which made it “impossible to possibly conclude”that the investors had purchased their XRP from the company.