Ripple CEO Says Company Now Mainly Hiring Outside U.S.

In a recent CNBC International interview, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed that the company plans to focus most of its hiring efforts outside of the U.S. for the foreseeable future.

He attributed this shift to the ongoing ambiguity of U.S. cryptocurrency regulations, which has caused entrepreneurs and investors to seek other, more accommodating jurisdictions. Europe, with its clear and robust regulatory framework for digital assets, has been a significant beneficiary of this trend.

Garlinghouse also elaborated on how this regulatory confusion in the U.S. has affected Ripple’s operations, explaining that the company has found it necessary to divert a considerable portion of its resources outside of the U.S. “95 percent of our customers are non-U.S, and this year most of our hiring will be non-U.S for some of those exact same reasons,” he stated. Ripple’s European expansion, he noted, is partly due to the continent’s favorable regulatory environment.

Reflecting on the future regulatory framework for cryptos in the wake of the FTX case, Garlinghouse highlighted the clear rules and roadmap provided by nations like the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Europe.

This clarity, he posited, allows entrepreneurs and investors to engage more constructively with regulators. Ripple’s recent acquisition of Medico, a Swiss-based firm, was partly driven by this regulatory clarity.

Garlinghouse emphasized the importance of differentiating between crypto-specific issues and broader problems such as fraud. Using the FTX case as an illustration, he argued that it represented a fraud issue rather than a crypto-specific one. “Frauds happen in lots of different asset classes. It’s not, unfortunately, specific to crypto,” he pointed out. He believes the U.S. could take lessons from Europe and other countries providing clear regulatory frameworks for digital assets.