After years of regulatory pressure, Ripple’s CEO has affirmed that US President Donald Trump and voters have beaten the last administration’s broader, “nonsensical crackdown on the crypto industry.”
US Anti-Crypto Era Is Over?
On Thursday, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse criticized the previous US administration’s anti-crypto campaign, which targeted the digital assets sector for years and pushed firms and investors abroad.
In an X post, the executive asserted that “the ‘Anti-Crypto Army’ was defeated… by the courts… the voters. And Trump,” who has repeatedly pledged to make the US the “crypto capital of the world” since returning to the White House in 2025.
To Garlinghouse, the Biden administration’s crackdown on the industry “never made policy, legal or political sense.” Moreover, he affirmed that the efforts to combat financial innovation “only helped protect those that wanted to keep an old, often broken, system in place.”
His comments echoed similar remarks made by President Trump on Wednesday. On Truth Social, the US president stated that he had saved the American digital assets industry from the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, and the “Anti-Crypto Army,” who nearly “destroyed” the sector by driving Bitcoin (BTC), perpetuals, and innovation offshore.
Now, “America is now the CRYPTO CAPITAL of the WORLD, and Builders and Entrepreneurs are coming BACK to the United States where they belong,” Trump asserted, pledging to “future-proof” the digital asset market structure legislation under his leadership so that it “cannot be undone by the Crypto Haters.”
“The new Frontier of Finance is being Built in America, and ‘TRUMP’ will NEVER let Crypto down!,” he continued. In another statement from this week, Trump also discussed the US’s push to lead the digital assets sector, explaining that it is a major industry and the government must protect its leadership.
Other countries are trying diligently to replace us in that capacity, but we won’t let that happen. It is a major Industry, and we must protect it.
A New Regulatory Chapter
Over the past year and a half, US regulators have shifted from a “regulation by enforcement” strategy towards a more welcoming approach. On Wednesday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) joined Gemini in a motion for relief from the judgment in the January 2025 order against the exchange, which included a $5 million penalty.
As reported by Bitcoinist, the Commission revealed it had reviewed the history of the investigation, the evidence, the charging decision, and the changes in federal digital asset policy, concluding that the complaint “should not have been filed — and would not have been under current enforcement standards.”
Similarly, the SEC has dismissed multiple investigations and lawsuits against crypto firms, while calling the industry one of the top priorities in its shift toward a pro-innovation approach.
Last month, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and Commissioner Hester Peirce affirmed that the pivot to a more welcoming environment has made developing a clearer regulatory framework that is “fit for purpose” significantly easier. In addition, it allows the regulators to address problems the industry may face and open opportunities for innovation.
Amid this new regulatory chapter, Ripple recently submitted a letter to the SEC Crypto Task Force as a follow-up to a late March meeting between the regulator and the industry.
In the letter, Ripple asked the regulator to clarify the treatment of payment stablecoins, crypto asset non-securities, and tokenized securities under the recent net capital and customer protection rules. It also asked for potential next steps for broader guidance and applauded the Task Force and Commissioner Peirce for the “in-depth and engaging discussion.”
