A top executive at Ripple says that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may have helped Ethereum (ETH) usurp XRP as the second-largest crypto by market cap.
In a new interview at DC FinTech Week, Ripple Labs chief executive officer Brad Garlinghouse says that XRP was second only to Bitcoin (BTC) until the SEC stepped in.
[adinserter block="1"]“The idea that the United States government… hasn’t helped pick winners in the United States’ ecosystem around crypto is crazy.
Within the last few years, XRP was the second-most valuable digital asset. As it became clear that the SEC had given the hall pass to ETH, ETH obviously has kind of exploded.
I just fundamentally think we should let market forces determine winners and losers, not regulation by enforcement as we’re seeing today.”
In December of 2020, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs claiming the company was selling the crypto asset XRP as an unregistered security. The filing sent XRP’s price tumbling from $0.57 to $0.26, according to CoinGecko. XRP is currently valued at $1.09.
Ethereum met a different fate than XRP, as the SEC declared in 2018 that it, along with Bitcoin (BTC), was not considered a security.
Since that decision, ETH has seen a nearly nine times increase in price, according to CoinGecko.
Follow us on X, Facebook and TelegramFeatured Image: Shutterstock/Tolsthor