Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse Backs Trump Crypto Pivot

In Trump crypto news today, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse declared the so-called ‘Anti-Crypto Army’ defeated, publicly crediting President Donald Trump, favorable court rulings, and shifting voter sentiment for ending what he described as a five-year campaign to drive digital asset innovation out of the United States.

Garlinghouse stated directly that ‘combatting financial innovation only helped protect those that wanted to keep an old, often broken, system in place, it never made policy, legal, or political sense.’

At the time of publication, XRP is down -3%, and BTC is down -4%, with Bitcoin sitting near $69,500 after reaching a peak of $126,000, a decline of roughly -42% from cycle highs.

The open question the market now has to answer is whether the political defeat of enforcement-first crypto oversight translates into a structural re-rating for token issuers and US-based digital asset projects, or whether the gap between White House posture and an enforceable legislative framework is wide enough to keep the regulatory risk discount firmly in place through 2026.

(SOURCE: TradingView)

Trump Crypto: SEC Regulation and Token Issuance and What a Pro-Crypto White House Actually Does for Project Launches

This is not just a victory for a well-connected CEO; it highlights how US token issuance has been suppressed and suggests ways to dismantle that mechanism. For nearly a decade, the SEC employed a regulation-by-enforcement approach, failing to provide clear definitions of securities in the digital asset space.

Ripple’s experience exemplifies this approach’s costs, with Garlinghouse noting that Ripple spent over $150M fighting the SEC over XRP’s status, resources that could have supported development and growth.

The July 2023 ruling by Judge Analisa Torres, which held that XRP’s programmatic sales on exchanges are not securities offerings, marked a significant shift, providing other token issuers with legal clarity.

Under Trump’s evolving Crypto Policy 2026 agenda, including the GENIUS Act and a legislative push for the CLARITY Act, there is a move towards statutory clarity rather than enforcement.

The FIT21 market-structure bill, passed with bipartisan support in May 2024, aims to reclassify many tokens as commodities based on decentralization or functional use, shifting oversight to the CFTC. This represents a structural change in crypto regulation.

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Why Garlinghouse’s Endorsement Now Functions as a Dual-Reading Signal for Token Issuers

Crypto companies contributed about $144M to super PACs in the 2024 election cycle, accounting for roughly one-third of corporate super PAC contributions, and candidates supported by major industry PACs won around 85% of their races. Ripple was a significant donor to Fairshake, a crypto-focused super PAC formed in response to former SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s enforcement actions.

A 168-page White House report under Trump encourages a pro-innovation approach to digital assets, potentially clearing the way for token issuers previously frozen out of US capital markets.

However, the White House’s support does not change the Securities Act of 1933, and whether a token sale qualifies as an investment contract remains a judicial question. Legislative attempts like FIT21 and the CLARITY Act face uncertain timelines for passage.

Both optimistic and cautionary interpretations stem from this political shift, hinging on whether the SEC under Trump’s appointee proceeds to drop or settle high-profile enforcement cases against token issuers while managing existing litigation.

What the Torres Ruling and the 2017 ICO Cycle Tell Us About the Current Policy Re-Rating

The current situation is reminiscent of the aftermath of the Torres ruling in July 2023, when XRP surged +74% in 48 hours due to the perceived invalidation of the SEC’s enforcement theory.

However, this premium faded as the ruling was understood to apply only to secondary exchange sales, leaving institutional custody frameworks unchanged.

A relevant historical analog is the 2017 ICO cycle, which collapsed not from immediate regulatory enforcement but from the SEC’s retroactive July 2017 DAO Report, which signaled that many token sales were unregistered securities. This gap between peak activity and enforcement created a false sense of regulatory safety.

Today, the landscape is different: major platforms like Coinbase and Kraken are lobbying the SEC for tokenized equity instruments, a significant shift from 2017.

Additionally, Ripple’s operations, particularly in Japan, where SBI Remit’s ¥2.5 trillion ODL rails are active, show that XRP’s infrastructure has been scaling amid litigation, suggesting that regulatory normalization would occur atop an already functioning network rather than on a speculative basis.

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