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A photographic illustration of the Ripple cryptocurrency ‘altcoin’ taken in London, United Kingdom on April 25, 2018.
Jack Taylor | Getty Images News | Getty Images
US-based cryptocurrency firm Ripple no longer derives most of its revenue from the US and is looking to expand its reach in Europe, the company’s top lawyer said.
In an interview with CNBC earlier this week, Ripple’s general counsel, Stuart Alderoty, said today that Ripple does business outside the United States. big legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Essentially, we have a lot of our employees in the US, but all of our customers and revenues are out of the US, he added.
At the same time, Ripple is expanding its presence in Europe.
The startup currently has two employees in the Republic of Ireland. Alderoty told his CNBC that he would like to obtain a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license from the Central Bank of Ireland so that he can “passport” services across the European Union through entities based there. He said he is.
Ripple also plans to file an application for an e-money license in Ireland soon. The commitment to invest in Europe was made despite a severe recession in the cryptocurrency market dubbed Crypto Winter.
The Central Bank of Ireland previously handed over a VASP license to cryptocurrency exchange Gemini.
Ripple, which helps financial institutions move money around the world using blockchain technology, has over 750 employees worldwide, about half of which are based in the United States. Around 60 people are based in our London office. UK for the annual Swell event.
In 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Ripple. The company and its executives alleged that the founder illegally sold his XRP, a cryptocurrency he created in 2012, to investors without first registering it as a security.
Ripple refutes this claim, stating that the token should not be considered an investment contract and is used in business to facilitate cross-border transactions between banks and other financial institutions.
Arderoti said he expects a verdict in the first half of 2023. A final court opinion is due, he said, by Nov. 30, after which the judge can decide or refer the case to a jury trial, if any. A matter of contested fact.
“In our case, we are at the beginning of the end of the process,” Alderoti said.
As part of the proceedings, Ripple struggled to obtain documents related to a June 2018 speech by former SEC official Bill Hinman. In his speech, Hinman said, etherthe rival token is “not a stock exchange”.
Despite a tense dispute with the SEC, Ripple still “works very closely with US policymakers,” Alderoty said.
XRP was once the third largest cryptocurrency, boasting a market capitalization of $120 billion in early 2018. Bitcoin and other digital currencies.
Cryptocurrencies plummeted last week after Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX cryptocurrency exchange collapsed. Bankman-Fried’s investment firm allegedly used FTX customer funds to make risky transactions. CNBC reported Before. The company faced a liquidity crisis as customers demanded withdrawals and rival exchange Binance discontinued its service. non-binding agreement to buy a company.
bankman fried Said He became overconfident and careless as he built FTX into a $32 billion giant. To the best of his knowledge, FTX thought it had built around $5 billion in leverage, when in reality it was around $13 billion.
Arderoti said the FTX bankruptcy was “a call to action for responsible economic centers to move towards normalcy.”
On Wednesday, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC that the idea that cryptocurrencies are unregulated is overstated. But he added that “transparency builds trust.”
Garlinghouse said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” that “cryptocurrencies need to mature as an industry, not just sunshine and roses.”
Ripple is unlikely to mention the collapse of FTX and how regulators dealt with it in that case, Arderoti added.
Part of the confusion surrounding XRP stems from the company’s partial ownership of the token. Ripple previously held his 60% of his XRP tokens in circulation. Since then, that amount has fallen by more than half, or 49%, according to Arderoti.
Ripple generates a portion of its revenue by releasing a supply of XRP on the open market. For the past three years, according to Arderoti, XRP has only been sold to business customers, not retailers.
As a privately held company, Ripple does not disclose its earnings. This year, the company processed his $10 billion in cross-border transactions with payment providers and other financial institutions. XRPa closely associated token.
The company, Ripple, was last valued at $15 billion by investors. According to CoinMarketCap data, XRP has a market capitalization of $19 billion.
Ripple’s European expansion move comes in anticipation of the EU’s MiCA crypto regulation coming into force in the next few years. MiCA seeks to coordinate rules on crypto assets across its 27-member block. It was passed by EU lawmakers earlier this year.
The EU has said it may need to create a separate regime for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), a specific type of digital asset that tracks the ownership of art and other assets on the blockchain.
I think MiCA is a really good start, said Alderoty.
The UK is also a priority. Ripple on Monday released a set of guidelines outlining how the UK should regulate cryptocurrencies.
Bills have been passed by the UK parliament to give financial regulators greater oversight of cryptocurrencies, but they have not yet become law.
Cryptocurrency executives say Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a fan of cryptocurrencies and the so-called Web3, Clarify regulations To make the country a more attractive place for businesses to set up shop.
