Deniz 
During a Wednesday fireside chat at the Korea Blockchain Week in Seoul, South Korea, Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said the firm is “very close” to introducing its U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin.
Ripple’s Stablecoin Launch Nears
“We are in a private kind of closed beta,” Garlinghouse remarked. “It’s called Ripple USD. RLUSD has been minted in that framework. We will certainly launch soon. Weeks, not months.”
The cross-border payment company revealed last month that it started testing RLUSD on two blockchain platforms. Monica Long, president of Ripple, said in June that the stablecoin is meant to accentuate tokens.
“I mean, 18 months ago, USDC depepled and we felt like there was an opportunity for a credible player that’s already working with lots of financial institutions to lean into that market,” Garlinghouse said.
USDT and USDC rule the stablecoin market right now. While USDC accounts for roughly 21%, USDT absorbs roughly 70% of the whole stablecoin supply.
Ripple’s Outlook on Going Public and SEC Challenges
Garlinghouse responded during the fireside chat on a possible initial public offering that he “has no interest” in Ripple going public in the United States, mostly because of how the Securities and Exchange Commission’s “pretty hostile” attitude toward crypto in general.
“SEC approved Coinbase going public in the United States and now the SEC is suing Coinbase for the same things they approved,” Garlinghouse noted. “One of the first pieces of advice I give entrepreneurs who ask me about starting crypto companies is: don’t incorporate in the United States. You’re just asking for more legal bills.”
According to Garlinghouse, bitcoin will prevail regardless of the candidate chosen for the next presidential contest. “I believe that we will see fresh leadership in the U.S. SEC regardless of who wins the United States election,” the Ripple CEO added. “I think (Gary Gensler) really has hurt his party. He’s a Democrat, and I think it’s hurt them in the current election cycle.”
From his run-ins with U.S. legislators, Garlinghouse claimed, Gensler has lost appeal on both sides of the aisle. “I heard that loud and clear at the Democratic National Convention. I heard that loud and clear at the Republican National Convention,” he continued.
In the recent court ruling on its years-long legal conflict with the regulator, Ripple last month was forced to pay a fine of $125 million, much less than SEC’s suggested $2 billion. On top of the court’s earlier ruling that certain of Ripple’s XRP sales did not breach securities rules, Garlinghouse and Ripple praised the court decision as a triumph for the business and the sector.
“There aren’t that many companies that actually can stand up to a bully. The SEC has a lot of power, and it takes a lot of money and a lot of conviction to fight that. But we really did from the very, very beginning believe that we were on the right side of the law and that we’d be on the right side of history.” Garlinghouse said.
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