Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse has conceded his company should have engaged with United States regulators earlier, and now it and the crypto industry are playing catch-up after being on the receiving end of legal enforcement actions.
"I've made far more trips to DC in the past few years than I did in the years before that," Garlinghouse said in an Oct. 23 appearance at DC Fintech Week.
"I look back on that, and I regret that. I think we made a mistake by not leaning in earlier, and we're trying to make up for lost time to some degree."
Ripple is one of the US crypto firms that have recently been entangled in a legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission, a regulator many US crypto executives claim is antagonistic and unfair to the industry.
Earlier this year, the SEC won part of its long-running suit against Ripple after a judge found its XRP XRP $0.5292 token was sold as an unregistered security to institutional buyers.
XRP wasn't a security when sold to retail traders on crypto exchanges, however, a contention that the SEC appealed to a higher court earlier this month, which Ripple plans to fight.
Garlinghouse told the Washington, DC crowd that the US "is a laggard" on crypto regulations compared to other countries and blamed SEC Chair Gary Gensler for starting a "reign of terror" against the industry and accused Senator Elizabeth Warren of "spreading misinformation" about crypto.
He added that part of "leaning in" is "just education" and showing that the crypto space has "serious people doing serious things," adding:
"It doesn't help that you had Sam Bankman-Fried showing up on Capitol Hill with cargo shorts and selling something that turned out not to be exactly what was represented."
"That hurt the whole industry, that hurt Ripple," Garlinghouse said.
He also mentioned Ripple has been "very active" with its political donations. The company has shoveled nearly $50 million this election cycle to the pro-crypto FairShake PAC, which has backed both Republican and Democratic candidates.
On Oct. 21, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen said he donated $10 million to a PAC supporting Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
XRP ETF is "inevitable"
In a Bloomberg Television interview the same day, Garlinghouse said it was "just inevitable" that XRP would be offered in a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US.
He said the over $21 billion that's flowed into spot Bitcoin BTC $67,385 ETFs since January "is very clearly demonstrating there's demand from institutions, there's demand from retail to access this asset class."
"XRP interest has grown," Garlinghouse claimed. "You've seen two or three ETF filings happen around XRP, and to me, it's just inevitable you're going to see not just Bitcoin and Ether, you're going to see an XRP ETF."
Garlinghouse believed an XRP fund "will do quite well," as he claimed the cryptocurrency has a "very interested and active community" both in the US and abroad.
He added crypto ETFs are part of a trend of "more and more institutionalized participation in the crypto industry."
"I think we'll continue to see that," he said. "I do think it creates upward pressure on the prices for many different cryptos, including XRP."