Fairshake, the leading crypto-funded super PAC in the 2024 elections, likely wouldn’t have started without the actions of Securities Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse told 60 Minutes in an interview airing this Sunday .
Gensler, who will leave office on January 20, led the federal government’s crackdown on the crypto industry. Gensler’s SEC has filed more than 120 lawsuits against crypto companies.
Garlinghouse said the SEC’s approach to crypto led Ripple and other crypto companies to launch Fairshake, the industry’s largest super PAC, in 2023.
“People say, ‘Why did these companies get together and organize and say, ‘This matters?’” Garlinghouse said. “And it’s a response to a war on crypto.”
“So if there had been any SEC chairman other than Gary Gensler…” “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan told Garlinghouse.
“I’m not sure Fairshake would exist,” Garlinghouse said.
Brennan replied, “Really?”
“I’m…absolutely,” Garlinghouse said.
The SEC sued Ripple in December 2020 at the end of the Trump administration – before Gensler was chairman – claiming that the sale of the cryptocurrency XRP represented the sale of an unregistered security. Garlinghouse said Ripple has spent more than $150 million fighting the SEC in court, arguing that the digital currency XRP should not be subject to the agency’s registration and disclosure requirements as if it were a stock offering.
In response to Garlinghouse’s comments to 60 Minutes, an SEC spokesperson said: “Any amount spent by the crypto industry on legal defense or influence pales in comparison to the savings lost by crypto investors to fraud and failure.”
The full cryptocurrency story airs this Sunday on 60 Minutes at 7pm ET on CBS stations.
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