Ripple CEO Takes Action to Investigate Who Influenced Hinman

Garlinghouse says Ripple is working on investigating Hinman to determine who influenced him to give the controversial speech.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has confirmed that the blockchain company is working behind the scene to ensure William Hinman is investigated to determine what and who influenced him to give the June 14, 2018, speech.

Hinman’s Emails

It bears mentioning that Ripple released Hinman’s emails, the drafts of Hinman’s controversial speech on cryptocurrencies, earlier this week. The document showed that Hinman ignored clear warnings and suggestions from top SEC officials to give the speech.

The officials, especially the Head of Trading & Markets (T&M), warned Hinman that the speech would stir up greater confusion in the market because it is divorced from Howey factors.

Despite the warnings, Hinman gave the speech at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit. Hinman noted that a digital asset will no longer be classed as a security once it is “sufficiently decentralized.” In this regard, he declared Bitcoin and Ethereum as non-securities.

Following the release of Hinman’s documents, Ripple’s General Counsel Stuart Alderoty took to Twitter on June 13, 2023, to call for an investigation to determine “who and what influenced” the former SEC director to give the speech.

Alderoty also called for an investigation into why the United States Securities and Exchange Commission touted the speech despite knowing it would create greater confusion.

Ripple CEO Says Company Is Working to Investigate Hinman

In a recent tweet, top XRP community member Mr. Huber (@Leerzeit) asked Ripple whether it plans to do something about the issues raised by Alderoty other than to call for an investigation on Twitter.

Responding to the inquiry, Garlinghouse said, “Yes.” However, Garlinghouse, also one of the defendants in the ongoing SEC vs. Ripple lawsuit, did not disclose how the company plans to investigate Hinman.

yes

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) June 16, 2023

Speculations Regarding Hinman’s Speech

There has been speculation that Hinman was influenced by someone from the Ethereum team to issue the controversial speech. Firstly, the recently-released Hinman’s emails showed that the former director of SEC’s Corporation Finance titled his first email the “Ether Speech.”

Hinman also revealed that he would meet with Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin to understand the Ethereum network better.

Consequently, many speculate that Hinman was pushing to give ETH a free pass right from the beginning, which explains why he ignored warnings from top SEC officials about the speech.

Discussions Over Hinman’s Emails

Meanwhile, the recently-released Hinman emails have continued to be the main topic of discussion within the XRP community. Prior to its release, many speculated that the document might contain internal deliberations at the SEC about whether XRP.

However, there was nothing of such in the document. This prompted top experts, including attorney Jeremy Hogan and former SEC director Marc Fagel, to assert that the document has no bombshell that could help Ripple win its case against the SEC.

Notably, the multi-year legal battle is expected to come to a conclusion soon. Fagel predicted that the judge would issue her summary judgment decision within days.