Ripple pins hopes on Biden administration as co-founder sells 28.6M XRP

After ending 2020 facing a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under Donald Trump’s administration, Ripple’s leadership is looking to the new year and a new U.S. President to bring a change in regulations more favorable to the firm.

According to a post on the Ripple website featuring comments from key executives, the firm is predicting the incoming Biden administration will most likely “bring a renewed focus on regulation and enforcement” in the crypto space.

“As we’ve seen, a lack of a clear regulatory framework over the last four years in the U.S. especially has left fintech and blockchain players in a state of limbo,” the post said. “Other countries like the UK, Switzerland, Singapore and Japan are miles ahead.”

Both Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen have been vocal about their criticism of the SEC’s policy of “regulation through enforcement” prior to the lawsuit.

Stu Alderoty, general counsel for the firm, was quoted in the piece as saying he believes the Biden administration would make crypto regulation a top priority over the next four years because it “understands its implications for public and private sector innovation.”

“Intelligent, well thought-out regulations communicated effectively and uniformly applied can help level the playing field and unleash innovation and further mainstream adoption here in the U.S.”

Garlinghouse echoed this sentiment yesterday, praising Biden’s nominee for SEC chair, Gary Gensler, as an individual more likely to be friendly to Ripple, and the crypto and blockchain industry as a whole:

Congrats to Gary Gensler! We’re ready to work with SEC leadership and the broader Biden administration to chart a path forward for blockchain and crypto innovation in the US. https://t.co/EEloq4lwrG

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) January 18, 2021

The news comes as Jed McCaleb resumed his extraordinary sell off of portions of the 9.5 billion XRP he received as a co-founder of Ripple before leaving the firm in 2014. Crypto analyst Leonidas Hadjiloizou reported that yesterday McCaleb sold 28.6 million XRP — roughly $8.5 million at the time of publication — following 25 days of no apparent activity after news broke of the Ripple SEC lawsuit.

McCaleb still has billions of XRP tokens available in his wallets. In December, Whale Alert reported that the Ripple co-founder liquidated 1.2 billion XRP in 2020 for more than $400 million, bringing the total number of his remaining XRP tokens to roughly 3.25 billion at the time of publication, or $970 million.

Ripple is currently facing a lawsuit from the SEC filed in December alleging the firm has been selling XRP tokens in violation of U.S. securities laws. The case is scheduled for a virtual pretrial conference on Feb. 22.

At the time of publication, the price of XRP is $0.30, having risen 2.9% in the last 24 hours.