Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty said XRP has already secured the regulatory clarity most of the crypto industry is still fighting for, independent of whether Congress ever passes the CLARITY Act. That certainty, he said, came through two separate paths. The outcome of Ripple’s own SEC lawsuit, and a joint SEC-CFTC guidance confirming XRP and several other digital assets qualify as commodities. “We have clarity lowercase c, with or without clarity uppercase C, the legislation,” Alderoty said.
A Status Won The Hard Way
Alderoty was candid that this clarity didn’t come easily, or with much early support from the rest of the industry. He said Ripple was public from the start that it was fighting the SEC not just for itself, but on behalf of crypto broadly, a claim he said the industry initially dismissed. “They just didn’t believe us,” he said.
“There were many in the industry that probably would just have been happy if Ripple got run out of town.” He said sentiment has shifted since, with more of the industry now recognizing Ripple’s role in shaping the legal landscape they currently operate under.
What The SEC’s New Guidance Confirms
Alderoty pointed to the SEC’s newly proposed 400-page “Regulation Crypto Assets” guidance, released less than 24 hours before the interview, as further validation. He said the document cites Ripple’s own comment letters directly, with several legal positions the company argued during its lawsuit now reflected in the SEC’s official proposal.
Why Ripple Isn’t Waiting On Congress
Alderoty argued that regulators shouldn’t sit idle while Congress debates legislation that may or may not eventually pass. He said the SEC and CFTC operate under a statutory mandate to protect consumers and market integrity, a mandate that doesn’t include waiting indefinitely for lawmakers to act. “Their job is not to wait for Congress to change the laws,” he said. “Their job is to work within the laws as they currently exist.” If the CLARITY Act does eventually pass, he added, the SEC and CFTC would simply adjust their existing rules to align with it, not start from scratch.
What This Means For Ripple’s Business Going Forward
Framed against that backdrop, Alderoty’s main point was that while CLARITY Act’s passage would still matter significantly for the rest of the crypto industry, still operating without clear rules, Ripple and XRP have already crossed that threshold. Whatever happens with the bill in Washington, XRP’s regulatory status, hard-won through years of litigation, isn’t riding on the outcome.
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