Ripple CEO Blasts Libra, Boasts of Warchest

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse blasted Facebook’s proposed Libra digital currency, suggesting that the initiative would have been met with less pushback had it been led by another company, such as PayPal.

“I think that the way they approached it demonstrated, frankly, [from] my point of view, arrogance in how they rolled it out,” he said at The Information’s annual subscriber summit, held in Menlo Park, Calif., on Thursday. “I think Facebook did not appreciate the trust deficit they had.”

The Takeaway

Garlinghouse says Facebook showed ‘arrogance’ in Libra rollout
CEO says blowback from Libra could hurt Ripple, other crypto firms
SoftBank’s large investments a ‘net negative’ for tech industry

Garlinghouse, who was promoted from president to CEO of Ripple in late 2016, has been an outspoken critic of Libra in recent weeks, as regulators around the world have pressured would-be backers like Visa and Mastercard to abandon the project. He said the blowback to Libra has raised concerns that other cryptocurrency companies may face greater scrutiny.

“Now I worry, am I going to get caught in the crossfire?” he said.

Ripple, which offers technology that facilitates real-time settlements between banks, is striking more than 30 deals a quarter with financial institutions, according to Garlinghouse. The firm also owns roughly $15 billion of the cryptocurrency XRP, the third highest valued digital asset after Bitcoin and Ethereum. That number fluctuates widely based on the speculative price of the cryptocurrency.

Garlinghouse said Ripple has more than $305 million in cash in the bank, which he said was equivalent to the company's most recent valuation. “We don’t need to raise capital,” he said.

Garlinghouse, a Silicon Valley veteran who led consumer products at Yahoo in the early 2000s and was later a senior executive at AOL, also lambasted SoftBank’s large investments into companies like WeWork and Uber as a “net negative” for the industry, saying the influx of capital has inflated company valuations.

“Profitability matters,” he said. “There has to be a clear path.”

Correction: Ripple is striking more than 30 deals a quarter with financial institutions. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the company was doing that many deals a week.

Alex Heath is a reporter at The Information covering social media companies along with augmented and virtual reality. He is based in Los Angeles and you can find him on Twitter @alexeheath.