Overview
- Brad Garlinghouse disclosed Sunday that he and co‑founder Chris Larsen seriously considered winding Ripple down in 2020 and distributing the company’s XRP to shareholders rather than fight the SEC.
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple on December 22, 2020, accusing the company of more than $1.3 billion in unregistered XRP sales.
- A federal judge later ruled that XRP itself is not a security for programmatic secondary‑market sales while finding some targeted institutional sales violated securities law.
- Ripple and the SEC settled in May 2025 with Ripple paying about $125,035,150 in civil penalties and the company reporting roughly $150 million in legal fees that it says preserved hundreds of jobs by choosing to litigate.
- With the legal dispute over, Ripple has pushed overseas growth, including securing an EU MiCA license, even as market commentators say the company’s near‑shutdown revelation has dented confidence in XRP’s short‑term price outlook.