Brad Garlinghouse: The Tech Maverick Rippling Through Finance

Published on by Cointele | Published on

Earlier this year, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse responded to controversy surrounding XRP movements by saying that Ripple cannot control the price of its associated token any more than Bitcoin whales control the price of the seminal cryptocurrency.

Regarding Ripple's relationship with XRP, he said, "In the XRP community, Ripple is the largest owner, and the point I have made is we're the most interested party in the success of the XRP ecosystem." He added that Ripple would never dump its XRP holdings into the market, as doing so is not in the firm's best interests.

Since taking the helm of the payments-focused fintech company in 2015, Garlinghouse has overseen its rapid expansion into new markets, the launch of new subsidiaries and affiliates, and defended Ripple in public controversies.

Yahoo and a loathing for peanut butter Before joining Ripple in 2015, Garlinghouse held a number of prominent positions in the tech and fintech space.

Expanding Ripple's network and clientele In November 2016, Chris Larsen, then CEO of Ripple, stepped down from the role to be replaced by Garlinghouse.

In June, Ripple announced that it signed a strategic partnership with money transmission network MoneyGram, wherein MoneyGram would be able to draw up to $50 million dollars from Ripple in exchange for equity.

Defending Ripple from controversy While Ripple has expanded rapidly under Garlinghouse's leadership, the firm has also become a target for some in the cryptocurrency community, who claim that it is not sufficiently decentralized and misrepresents its relationship with the XRP token.

"One really important distinction is, the XRP ledger existed before Ripple the company. Certainly we are an interested party in the success of the XRP ledger, for sure - we own a lot of XRP. But it's a little bit like saying, Exxon owns a lot of oil. That doesn't make oil a security."

Garlinghouse repeated the refrain that Ripple is the most interested party in the success of the token, stating that XRP is the "Only example of crypto and blockchain being used at scale, period."

Looking aheadAs Ripple moves into the future, Garlinghouse appears to remain confident that blockchain technology and firms like Ripple will change the payments landscape to make finance more accessible, faster and cheaper for users.

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