The co-founder and leading executive of Ripple Labs, Chris Larsen, has stated that the company is looking for locations to potentially relocate its headquarters away from the US. The reason for this is the strict regulations that the American government has and plans to impose.
“If you want to be doing this business, then you should probably be located somewhere else. To be honest, our company is looking into the question of relocating headquarters to another, much friendlier jurisdiction,” he noted.
Larsen made this announcement at the LA Blockchain Summit on Tuesday. He argued that virtually every country, except for the US, is creating favorable terms to regulate the crypto industry.
The executive chairman pointed out that the most likely destinations for such a move could be the UK and Singapore.
Ripple has been entangled in legal battles since May 2018 when investors claimed the tech giant violated the security laws on state and federal levels with their cryptocurrency, XRP. Later, in August 2019, the same group of investors filed a complaint, claiming that Ripple`s token represents unlicensed securities under the federal law`s guidance.
The company’s defense responded that, although it does own a big among of XRP, the network settling the transactions itself is decentralized. Furthermore, in a motion to dismiss the allegations filed in September last year, Ripple explained that “no common enterprise exists between Ripple and XRP purchases; no promises were made that Ripple will help XRP holders to generate profits; and that the XRP Ledger is designed to be decentralized”.
