Blockchain payments firm Ripple has kept on adding new clients, even after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a lawsuit against the firm and two of its executives alleging they raised “raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering” referring to XRP.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed on social media the firm “signed 15 new customers after the SEC complaint,” which as Decrypt reports suggests the company has been adding two new clients per week. The firm is now “seeing more customers than ever before.”
Increasing demand for digital financial services and payments interoperability, Garlinghouse said, propelled the adoption of RippleNet, helping the number of deals signed last year go up 80% year-over-year, with transactions growing 1,700%.
Ripple has also kept on building on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) along with the XRP community through RippleX. Per the firm developers choose to build on XRPL “for its performance, low cost, reliability and security, accessibility and inherently green attributes.”
Garlinghouse added that last year the XRP Ledger became the first major blockchain globally to “to decarbonize in partnership with the Energy Web Foundation.” It adds:
Today, RippleX reaches 12 million users through XRPL and Interledger Protocol, and partners with more than 40 companies championing XRP utility including Coil, Forte, BRD, Bitpay and Flare. We will continue engaging the 100+ projects currently using XRPL by inspiring developers with best-in-class applications and functionalities.
The firm has also added staff throughout the year, including “top talent” to its leadership team with backgrounds from companies like Apple, PayPal, Amazon, Tesla, and Twitter. As CryptoGlobe reported, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington has recently questioned the SEC’s decision to sue Ripple.
While most crypto platforms decided to delist XRP shortly after the lawsuit was announced some sided with Ripple on the lawsuit, arguing that the SEC’s move hurt XRP investors. Crypto exchange Uphold pointed out that the SEC’s goal is to protect consumers, and believes it’s hard to see “how a judgment rendering XRP essentially worthless and inflicting billions of dollars of losses on retail investors” would square with that goal.
Ripple itself has argued the lawsuit “already affected countless innocent XRP retail holders with no connection to Ripple.” It added it “muddied the waters for exchanges, market makers, and traders.”
Featured image via Pixabay.
