On Thursday (October 20), Ripple, the FinTech firm that is using blockchain technology to allow “global financial institutions, businesses, governments and developers to move, manage and tokenize value”, celebrated its 10th anniversary.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that the team celebrated the firm’s birthday at their latest All Hands meeting:
Interestingly, Ripple had something else to celebrates on this day since this was the day on which Stuart Alderoty, who is Ripple’s General Counsel, announced that Ripple’s legal team had finally managed to get their hands on the documents related to the speech William Hinman, then director of the Division of Corporation Finance at the SEC, gave at Yahoo Finance’s “All Markets Summit: Crypto” one-day event in San Francisco, California on 14 June 2018.
The speech was about how the SEC plans to use the “Howey Test” to determine whether a digital asset should be considered a security or not. The only two cryptocurrencies Hinman mentioned by name were Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), neither of which he said should be considered as securities:
“And so, when I look at Bitcoin today, I do not see a central third party whose efforts are a key determining factor in the enterprise. The network on which Bitcoin functions is operational and appears to have been decentralized for some time, perhaps from inception. Applying the disclosure regime of the federal securities laws to the offer and resale of Bitcoin would seem to add little value.[9]
“And putting aside the fundraising that accompanied the creation of Ether, based on my understanding of the present state of Ether, the Ethereum network and its decentralized structure, current offers and sales of Ether are not securities transactions. And, as with Bitcoin, applying the disclosure regime of the federal securities laws to current transactions in Ether would seem to add little value.“
In response to Alderoty’s announcement on Twitter, Garlinhouse said:
“The SEC wants you to think that it cares about disclosure, transparency and clarity. Don’t believe them. When the truth eventually comes out, the shamefulness of their behavior here will shock you.“
Ripple has been certified by Great Place to Work Institute, with 95% of employees surveyed saying that “this is a great place to work.”
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Featured Image via Pixabay
