Ripple CEO Debunks 'XRP Controls' Claim with $150M Hack Evidence

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has addressed claims that his company controls XRP. He rejected the assertion, saying it is false and part of why Ripple ended up in a US government court case where it had to prove otherwise.

The claim was made during an event, where an attendee pointed out that many people move into crypto because governments print money and currencies lose value, an issue Bitcoin and Ethereum avoid because nobody controls them. They asked whether XRP, held largely by one entity and a few individuals, undercuts that appeal.

Garlinghouse first pointed to a wider problem in the industry: with money at stake, false claims are often deliberate. He described people who spread this kind of information as spreading 'disinformation.'

Garlinghouse explained that the XRP Ledger is open source and decentralized. Ripple runs 2% of its validators, while independent parties run the other 98%. He acknowledged that Ripple holds a large amount of XRP but said that gives it no say in governance.