Ripple CEO Explains How Crypto Industry Has Increased Its Influence on the Political Arena. What’s the Big Deal?

Let us recall that a Political Action Committee (PAC) is a committee for political activity. In the context of the US political arena, we are talking about an organization that collects money to support candidates or promote political initiatives. There are also Super PACs, which can collect unlimited amounts.

It’s funny that some in the crypto community have used the power of Super PACs or super political action committees to support Democrats who are known to be negative towards the coin industry.

In particular, in the fall, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen said that in August he donated $1 million in the cryptocurrency XRP to then-Democratic US presidential candidate Kamala Harris. In October, he donated another $10 million in digital assets to support Harris, which led some Twitter users to call him a “masochist.”

However, Brad Garlinghouse called the actions of such organizations useful. According to him, the 2024 US presidential elections were a chance to improve the education of voters.

What’s Happening in the Cryptocurrency Industry

During the interview, the head of Ripple emphasized that the community as a whole, and not any specific political force, managed to influence the elections. Here is a corresponding remark on this matter, which is provided by Coindesk .

Of the 29 Republicans and 33 Democrats the industry supported in the congressional races, 85 percent won. That’s incredible. We absolutely helped increase the number of seats filled by the candidates we wanted with the money we gave.

Again, Republicans have been increasingly supportive of the coin industry in recent years, so these statistics on the number of candidates supported also raise certain questions.

In addition, Garlinghouse listed some local examples of PAC success. He continues.

Do I think we had an impact on the election of Michigan Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin? Yes, absolutely. Do I think we had an impact in Arizona? Of course.

While Fairshake’s Ripple-backed activities are nonpartisan, one of the defining moments in the industry’s long-term course was the victory of Donald Trump. Garlinghouse admits that Fairshake was able to achieve significant influence on Trump himself, and then on all Republicans.

If Donald used to openly oppose the crypto market, now crypto has become the basis of his election promises. Here is what Garlinghouse had to say about this.

I think it’s clear that Donald Trump has embraced cryptocurrency and the crypto industry has embraced Donald Trump.

2024 has become an important year for Ripple’s XRP cryptocurrency. After the preliminary conclusion of a long legal battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which ended in Ripple’s favor, the crypto asset received a new impetus for growth.

The move removed many regulatory barriers, allowing XRP to regain investor confidence and expand its presence on key exchanges like Coinbase and Binance. As a result, the coin has seen significant growth, reaching new yearly highs and becoming one of the leaders in terms of trading volume in the sector the day before.

According to Cointelegraph sources , Garlinghouse criticized the events after the interview was released.

He said that journalists missed a lot of important information – including about the Ripple-SEC lawsuit. Here is his quote from the broadcast.

Their accusation was that Ripple and our sales of XRP constituted the sale of unregistered securities.

However, journalists failed to record one detail. This is about a court ruling from the summer of 2023, when the judge recognized that XRP is not a security in relation to programmatic sales on exchanges. That is, transactions with the token for ordinary investors are not classified as a violation of the law, which means that the regulator should not have any claims against the issuing company on this matter.

The only exception was sales of XRP to large investors who directly purchased coins from Ripple. In this case, the court did classify the transaction as an unregistered securities transaction.

The 60 Minutes broadcast also featured a counterargument from former SEC official John Reed Stark, who said that “judges have said over and over again that these tokens are securities.” However, Garlinghouse found Stark’s opinion correct, even though much important contextual information was cut from the broadcast.

The SEC initially filed a lawsuit against Ripple back in December 2020. In August 2023, a judge awarded the company a $125 million fine. The SEC then appealed that decision, and Ripple counter-appealed, leaving the case pending at press time.


Funding the campaigns of politicians who support the cryptocurrency industry has definitely affected the results of the November elections in the United States. Thanks to this, there will be many more officials in Congress who do not consider coins solely a tool for breaking the law. And this gives hope for the emergence of adequate regulation of the crypto market as early as next year.


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