US Representative Tom Emmer is confident that XRP isn’t a security.
Emmer, a Republican from Minnesota, held a crypto-focused town hall on Thursday to discuss the space with some of the biggest names in the industry, including Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse.
Garlinghouse says the biggest challenge Ripple and the XRP community have faced is the lack of clarity regarding how crypto assets beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum will be classified by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. He notes it’s been more than two years since BTC and ETH were ruled not to be securities and that the lack of clarity for the rest of the industry has restricted innovation.
Emmer, a noted supporter of the crypto space, agrees.
“Over two years is not only a problem, it is absolutely unacceptable, because what this does is entrepreneurs like you and everyone else on this town hall — you start looking elsewhere. Money will go where it’s easiest to flow, and the more the government puts in obstacles — and one of them is just inaction — the less opportunity we have to position the US as the leader.”
The representative says he plans to keep working on persuading other members of Congress – who he says “still think of Bitcoin in terms of the Silk Road” – that crypto has value and utility.
The XRP classification in particular matters to Ripple: The global payments startup is currently facing lawsuits that allege it sold the asset as an unregistered security. One is a class-action lawsuit from lead plaintiff Bradley Sostack, a former XRP investor who claims Ripple violated advertising laws in California. In May, Sostack’s lawsuit, which was initially filed in 2018, was consolidated with a new case filed by Bitcoin Manipulation Abatement (BMA), a company based in the US territory of Puerto Rico, which also claims that Ripple violated securities laws by selling XRP.
In June, Ripple filed for the fraud allegations to be dismissed, arguing that Sostack failed to offer the facts necessary to show Ripple made any false statements. The next hearing is scheduled for August 26.
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