CLARITY Act Dead, But XRP Is Safe? Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse Says ‘We Have Clarity’

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has admitted that the collapse of the CLARITY Act hurt. He also says XRP no longer needs Congress to settle the question that hung over it for years.

Speaking during celebrations for Evernorth’s Nasdaq listing, Garlinghouse said the bill’s failure “definitely stung.” He added that he had personally put a lot of energy into getting the crypto market structure bill through Congress.

“We Have Clarity”

Garlinghouse said XRP holders are in a stronger position than the failed vote suggests. He pointed to the outcome of Ripple’s long court battle with the SEC, saying the federal judge wrote in her opinion that “XRP is not a security.”

“So, we have clarity,” he said.

That ruling came from Judge Analisa Torres in July 2023. She found that XRP is not a security by itself and that Ripple’s sales of XRP on public exchanges were not securities offerings. She also ruled, however, that Ripple’s direct sales of XRP to institutional investors did count as unregistered securities sales.

Regulators Are Filling The Gap

The CLARITY Act failed a Senate cloture vote 49 to 50 on September 15. Garlinghouse said the SEC and CFTC have stepped into rulemaking to cover what the bill was meant to do. He said there are also lessons to learn from what went wrong in Congress.

Can A Future Regulator Undo It?

Garlinghouse acknowledged that a future SEC or CFTC chair could take a harsher stance on crypto. He said that is possible, but argued that years of progress cannot simply be rolled back.

When the interviewer described it as being unable to “put the genie back in the bottle,” Garlinghouse agreed.

Why It Matters For XRP

Without a law from Congress, crypto’s rules now come mostly from regulators and courts. Rules made by agencies can be changed by future leadership more easily than an act of Congress. For XRP specifically, Garlinghouse is relying on the 2023 court ruling as the foundation for its legal status.