TL;DR
- Brad Garlinghouse states that Ripple uses XRP, but does not govern it.
- The XRP Ledger network is open-source and maintained by a global community.
- Garlinghouse underscores that decisions about the protocol require community consensus, not corporate approval.
Brad Garlinghouse once again highlighted the difference between the asset XRP and the company Ripple. The Ripple CEO brought the topic back to the table because, according to him, the market still does not fully understand it.
Recently, Garlinghouse insisted that although Ripple uses the XRP Ledger technology to optimize cross-border payments, the company does not exercise control over the network, which is a global and decentralized ecosystem.
This misunderstanding was a central point during Ripple’s prolonged legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The litigation forced the company to demonstrate that the XRP ecosystem extends far beyond its corporate structure. Garlinghouse was emphatic in correcting one of the most common confusions: “People sometimes say, ‘XRP has a CEO.’ That’s simply incorrect. Ripple has a CEO—that’s me. XRP doesn’t have one.”
Governance and the Power of the Community
To reinforce his argument, Garlinghouse highlighted the decentralized nature of the XRP Ledger. The network is maintained by hundreds of developers, validators, and projects from around the world, all contributing independently.
This structure, in his opinion, brings XRP closer in spirit to Bitcoin or Ethereum than to any corporate-owned token. The independence of XRP and Ripple is manifested in its governance; decisions about protocol updates do not depend on Ripple’s approval, but on broad community consensus.
Garlinghouse admitted that even Ripple’s proposals have been rejected in the past by the community, a clear sign that the decentralized system works as it should. The CEO called for greater education in the industry to clarify how open blockchain systems operate and how companies like Ripple can participate in an ecosystem without controlling it.
“Ripple is a participant, not the owner,” he concluded. “We build with XRP, but XRP belongs to the world.” His message comes at a key moment when regulators and investors are learning to differentiate between corporate projects and genuinely community-driven digital assets.
