SEC Drops Ripple Case, CEO Brad Garlinghouse Quashes IPO Rumours

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has revealed that the US Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ) has abandoned its appeal in its case against the company.

“It’s been almost four years and about three months since the SEC originally sued us, certainly a painful journey in lots of ways,” Garlinghouse said at the Digital Assets Summit in New York. “I really deeply believed that we were going to be on the right side of the law and on the right side of history.”

“The system just feels broken. That we had to fight this fight for the industry and you had an SEC attacking the industry, particularly the Ripple case,” he continued. “There were no victims, there was no investor loss. They were just not acting in good faith.”

In October, the SEC issued an initial notice of appeal Judge Analisa Torres's August ruling in which Ripple was fined $125 million. Garlinghouse described Toress's ruling as a "victory for Ripple."

The figure was just a sliver of what the Ripple community had potentially faced. Initially, the regulator sought $1 billion in disgorgement and prejudgment interest and $900 million in civil penalty.

Judge Torres ordered Ripple to pay $125 million in civil penalties and imposed an injunction against future securities law violations. Torres found that 1,278 institutional sale transactions by Ripple violated securities law.

The SEC’s latest filing represents a detailed effort to overturn the district court's decision. The agency also disputes the lower court’s exclusion of non-cash XRP distributions, such as those used for employee compensation and business incentives, from securities regulations.

These transactions meet the "investment of money" requirement under the Howey framework, according to the regulator.

In January 2025, the SEC submitted a filing that challenged the July 2023 court ruling.

Reflecting on the prolonged legal process, Garlinghouse criticized the SEC’s approach. “The system just feels broken. That we had to fight this fight for the industry and you had an SEC attacking the industry, particularly the Ripple case,” he said. “There were no victims, there was no investor loss. They were just not acting in good faith.”

Over the past month, the SEC has dropped investigations and lawsuits against a number of crypto companies including Uniswap Labs , Robinhood , OpenSea , Coinbase , Consensys , Yuga Labs and Kraken .

However, Ripple’s legal battles are not entirely over. The company continues to challenge a $125 million fine and the court ruling requiring the registration of institutional XRP sales as securities. “The SEC has abandoned their appeal. That means we go from being the defendant to the plaintiff,” Garlinghouse told Bloomberg .

“We’ve spent over $150 million defending this case, not just for us, but for the entire industry,” Garlinghouse added. “The SEC wanted to push its power over crypto through lawsuits. That’s over now.”

Meanwhile, Garlinghouse dismissed speculation about Ripple pursuing an initial public offering (IPO).

“Going public is something we can consider, but we don’t need to do it,” he said. “There will be consolidation this year, and we’re going to be part of it. Banks need to safely custody crypto assets and payments infrastructure is outdated."

XRP's price is up 4% this week, outperforming Bitcoin's 1.8%.