Amidst ongoing broader efforts to align the cryptocurrency space with the White House policies, Ripple Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Brad Garlinghouse has publicly criticized the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Gary Gensler, underscoring the tensions between the digital asset industry and government regulators.

Garlinghouse’s critique centers on what he sees as SEC regulatory overreach and the absence of proper guidelines under the leadership of Gensler. This is because the Ripple executive believes the regulatory watchdog’s strategy toward the crypto landscape has constantly impeded innovations and proved ineffective.

A Major Leap For The Cryptocurrency Space

In the recent post on the X (formerly Twitter) platform, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse started off by expressing his gratitude toward US Congressman Ro Khanna’s remarkable leadership and involvement in the crypto industry. The Ripple CEO’s acknowledgement comes at a time of ongoing endeavours by the digital asset sector to obtain more lucid regulatory measures in order to promote development and compliance in the US.

Drawing attention to the recently completed crypto roundtable, which oversaw major figures like Mark Cuban, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer (CLO) Paul Grewal, Circle’s Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) Dante Disparte, and US House of Representative Joe Neguse, among others, Garlinghouse noted that the development marks the first step towards turning words into deeds.

Although Garlinghouse considers the roundtable a great leap for the industry, regretfully, he stated that most democrats still support the US SEC chairman Gary Gensler’s illegal war against crypto. According to the Ripple CEO, this has continuously hindered the potential for American innovation to thrive. As a result, the GOP has declared its support for the digital asset sector.

The post read:

Unfortunately, the majority of Dems continue to enable Gensler’s unlawful war on crypto, sabotaging the ability for American innovation to thrive. It’s no wonder the GOP has announced a pro-crypto stance.

Given the current efforts to bring forth a clear regulatory environment for digital currencies, Garlinghouse has criticized Gensler, saying he will go down as the Luddite of his time. “Words are easy, action is hard but necessary. Choose wisely. Voters are paying attention,” he added.

Need For More Legislation, Not Litigation

As the digital asset sector continues to evolve, Coinbase CLO, Paul Grewal, present at the recently concluded roundtable highlighted that the purpose of the meeting is to stress the need for legislation, not more litigation.

According to Grewal, similar to politics, policies are personal, and the 52 million Americans who have owned cryptocurrency view the administration’s opposition to their access to the financial system as an attack on them. This is especially true for historically marginalized communities, which are disproportionately unbanked or underbanked. 

Thus, with the productive roundtable, Grewal believes there is once again hope for all these to change, underlining the current momentum around crypto since it is nonpartisan.