Ripple’s chief executive, Brad Garlinghouse, used his appearance at DC Fintech Week to dismantle one of the crypto industry’s most persistent misconceptions - that Ripple and XRP are the same thing.
He made it clear that Ripple is a private fintech company building payment infrastructure, while XRP is an independent, decentralized asset running on a public blockchain that Ripple neither owns nor controls.
Ripple Is a Company, XRP Is a Network
Garlinghouse said that many people still fail to grasp that Ripple merely uses XRP, rather than governs it. The company develops technology that leverages the XRP Ledger for cross-border payments, but the token itself functions on a global, open-source network anyone can build on.
The misunderstanding, he noted, even became a focal point in Ripple’s long legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The lawsuit forced the company to clearly demonstrate that XRP’s ecosystem exists beyond Ripple’s corporate structure – a point Garlinghouse believes the market still doesn’t fully appreciate.
“There’s No CEO of XRP”
The Ripple CEO took a moment to address the internet’s favorite misconception head-on. “People sometimes say, ‘XRP has a CEO,’” he said. “That’s just wrong. Ripple has a CEO – that’s me. XRP doesn’t have one.”
He added that the XRP Ledger is maintained by hundreds of developers, validators, and projects from around the world, all contributing independently. This decentralized participation is what, in his view, makes XRP closer in spirit to Bitcoin or Ethereum than to any corporate-owned token.
Power Lies in the Community
Garlinghouse emphasized that Ripple’s influence over XRP’s governance is limited. Decisions about protocol upgrades or amendments on the XRP Ledger require broad community consensus, not corporate approval. Ripple’s stance on certain proposals has even been overruled in the past – a sign, he said, that the system works exactly as a decentralized one should.
By removing centralized authority, the network ensures that no single company can dictate its direction, not even Ripple.
A Call for Education and Clarity
The Ripple boss argued that much of the confusion stems from a general lack of public understanding about how open blockchain systems operate. To fix this, he said, the industry needs better education about what decentralization actually means – and how companies like Ripple can support a crypto ecosystem without controlling it.
“Ripple is a participant, not the owner,” Garlinghouse said. “We build with XRP, but XRP belongs to the world.”
Garlinghouse’s comments come at a pivotal time, as regulators and investors are increasingly differentiating between corporate blockchain projects and community-driven digital assets. His message reinforced a simple truth that’s often lost in the noise: Ripple may be using XRP to reshape global payments, but the token itself is a product of collective innovation, not corporate control.
