US SEC to sue Ripple for allegedly selling unlicensed securities.

According to the Fortune report, the US blockchain firm Ripple will be sued by the SEC for allegedly selling unlicensed securities in the form of XRP tokens. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse tweeted, “Today, the SEC voted to attack crypto. Chairman Jay Clayton – in his final act – is picking winners and trying to limit US innovation in the crypto industry to BTC and ETH.” Some members of the crypto community have long criticized the XRP token, which is associated with Ripple, as highly centralized.

“Ripple will continue to use XRP.”

Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse tweeted that “We know crypto and blockchain technologies aren’t going anywhere. Ripple has and will continue to use XRP because it is the best digital asset for payments – speed, cost, scalability, and energy efficiency. It’s traded on 200+ exchanges globally and will continue to thrive.” Bitcoin and Ethereum have both escaped SEC enforcement due to their decentralized nature. The debate about whether XRP is a security or not has been going on for a long time, and Ripple faced lawsuits from XRP buyers as well.

Ripple intends to fight the SEC.

Brad Garlinghouse further noted that the SEC – out of step with other G20 countries & the rest of the US govt – should not be able to cherry-pick what innovation looks like (especially when their decision directly benefits China). “We are ready to fight and win – this battle is just beginning,” he wrote. The blockchain firm has maintained an escrow account of around 50 billion XRP, or around half of the total supply, which the CTO David Schwartz claims to have been ‘gifted’ by the creators of the third-largest cryptocurrency. Despite class-action lawsuits and acrimonious splits between the founders, the blockchain firm has survived to become one of the fintech industry’s richest companies.