In a riveting discourse, Charles Gasparino, an esteemed Fox Business reporter, has cast aspersions on the transparency of Ripple and its CEO, Brad Garlinghouse. Gasparino’s conjecture posits that despite possibly holding personal wealth upwards of $10 billion, the financial revelations of the firm largely remain a mystery to the public.

Scrutiny Surrounding Ripple CEO Intensifies

According to Gasparino, the recent surge in XRP’s price has significantly bolstered the wealth of Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse. This boom in his fortune has led Gasparino to ponder why the public hasn’t been granted access to Ripple’s financial earnings. He declared, “Ripple, despite its traditional business model and seeming disregard for the norms of blockchain operations, has remained opaque regarding its earnings.”

The nomination of Paul Atkins, a former SEC Commissioner, as the head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), by President Donald Trump could see this lack of transparency becoming a central issue. Atkins is slated to face lawmakers, such as U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on March 27, 2025.

Gasparino added, “Retail trading of XRP satisfies the SEC’s decentralization test. However, there’s no denying that XRP was used to establish the Ripple platform, which is a business. This usually necessitates financial disclosures under securities laws, something that could be brought up during Atkins’s confirmation hearing next week by someone like Senator Warren, who is well-versed in these laws.”

Furthermore, Ripple has been silent on Gasparino’s allegations. The company is recognized for disseminating quarterly XRP Markets Reports which detail token holdings and certain escrow accounts’ status. However, comprehensive financial statements akin to those public companies publish, are absent due to its private nature, exempting it from the need to submit filings such as 10-Ks or 10-Qs under U.S. securities law.

As these discussions ensue, Ripple is confronting another critical legal development. Garlinghouse recently announced that Judge Analisa Torres’s July 2023 ruling, which stated that XRP traded on public exchanges does not meet a security’s legal definition, would not be appealed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Controversies and Consequences

The upcoming confirmation hearing may see Senator Elizabeth Warren, a well-known critic of cryptocurrency, questioning whether Ripple, a private company launching a token integral to its operations, should reveal its traditional financials under securities laws.

Garlinghouse, whose wealth could be around a whopping $10 billion, is currently in the vicinity of the 100th position on Forbes’ U.S. wealth rankings, largely due to the hike in XRP’s market value. Ripple, having launched with an allocation of 100 billion tokens, has faced recurring queries about the profit distribution among corporate leadership and early founders.

Although public records concerning this matter are scarce, SEC lawsuit court documents against Ripple provide some insight into Garlinghouse’s personal XRP sales. From 2017 to 2020, Garlinghouse reportedly sold XRP worth about $164.26 million, with over 90% of the sales conducted on foreign exchanges. The single highest sale was in 2017, when he made roughly $42.27 million through a self-directed transaction via Bitstamp.

Ripple’s executive chairman and co-founder, Chris Larsen, is said to account for the rest of the $600 million in personal, unregistered XRP sales mentioned in the SEC lawsuit. Meanwhile, Ripple’s initial founders—Arthur Britto, Jed McCaleb, and Larsen—were collectively given 20 billion XRP at the token’s inception. In an attempt to provide predictability around token supply, Ripple locked 55 billion XRP in escrow in 2017. At the time of writing, XRP is trading at $2.41.

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Did Brad Garlinghouse sell a significant amount of XRP?

Yes, court documents in the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple shed some light on Garlinghouse’s personal sales of XRP. From 2017 to 2020, Garlinghouse sold an estimated $164.26 million worth of XRP, with the majority of the sales conducted on foreign exchanges.

Is Ripple required to release its financial statements to the public?

As Ripple is a privately held company, U.S. securities law does not mandate it to disclose its financial statements in the same way that public companies are required to do. However, the company is known for releasing Quarterly XRP Markets Reports detailing its token holdings and the status of its escrow accounts.

How will the nomination of Paul Atkins as the head of the SEC affect Ripple?

The confirmation of Paul Atkins as the head of the SEC could lead to increased scrutiny over Ripple’s financial transparency. Atkins is expected to face lawmakers during his confirmation hearing, which could potentially result in discussions about whether Ripple should disclose more information about its financials.