Brad Garlinghouse made headlines by attending a strategic dinner meeting with President-elect Donald Trump, which you can say was a turning point of regulation for the cryptocurrencies. Stuart Alderoty sits down with the meeting as Ripple fights the legal battle with the SEC.

This could be a huge one, as ripple battles regulatory challenges and wants to go global.

Key-Takeaways:

• Crypto regulation optimism is coming off the Donald Trump and Brad Garlinghouse meeting. That’s right around when Ripple’s U.S. prospects begin to inker, just before the SEC’s appeal deadline. 
• As soon as XRP’s victory was clear, the coin surged more than 300 percent as confidence in Ripple rose. As part of these attempts, Ripple is entering newer as an XRP ETF and RLUSD to attract more investors.

The Significance of Timing in Politics

Particularly timely is that the dinner meeting comes on the tail end of the SEC’s Jan. 15 deadline to file its opening brief in its appeal of the July 2023 ruling. This deadline, however, is of the essence for Ripple’s on-going legal battle and its future regulatory landscape.

Great dinner last night with @realDonaldTrump & @s_alderoty.

Strong start to 2025! pic.twitter.com/UjM6lahUG4

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) January 8, 2025

Yet under the previous administration, Brad Garlinghouse saw enough regulatory sparring over Ripple’s activities, such that it had been curtailed from operating in the United States. That in essence forced Ripple to focus on global expansion rather than continuing the domestic growth.

Ripple’s strategic pivot was this, and sticking to it helped, even despite the country the company called home taking up a stronger foothold in global markets. A meeting with Trump could serve as a new recipe for cutting through regulatory red tape and a chance to open the domestic door for Ripple.

This political landscape has changed a great deal since Trump’s latest electoral victory, and these developments make way for new discourse around cryptocurrency regulation. Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse says the company opened 75 percent of current job openings in the US and has optimism about the ‘Trump effect’ on the crypto market.

This is a change and should make Ripple begin to pump new energy for driving a United States market with similar regulation. A sense of a better possibility, of more positive policy shifts under the new administration, appears to be gaining an increasingly sure sense of itself in the company’s pivot.

Market Shifts and Ripple’s Strategy Response

The meeting has similarly resulted in sharp price movements for XRP, with the cryptocurrency markets having felt the big impact. The token’s price has soared more than 300% since US president-elect Donald Trump’s shock election victory, far exceeding the rise in many other major cryptocurrencies.

This was what made XRP become: the more optimism around the addition of Ripple in the future, the more so, as Garlinghouse was able to engage strategically with (political) figures. The company has also used this to keep investors in the loop with what the company is doing and has helped increase confidence in the company as it faces on-going regulatory challenges.

What’s interesting about Ripple is that it seems able to work its way around these challenges, even though it is so connected politically, and perhaps market sentiment about Ripple is finally overturning. Perhaps it’s because of the meeting with Trump.

Ripple community focus shifts to regulatory concerns, including the launch of its new stablecoin, interestingly, RLUSD, and even the potential for an XRP funds ETF. These initiatives, alongside constructive political engagement, have helped to increase interest from retail brokers and crypto native funds, say market makers.

Ripple’s product push and wider presence in the crypto scene include an introduction of RLUSD and a real potential for an XRP ETF. Another thing they’re doing is bringing in new investors plus making the company’s market presence more impressive.

The change in SEC leadership, with Paul Atkins chair and other appointed crypto friendly change portends a regulatory pivot. This transition will feel the repercussions in both the ongoing litigation and the broader crypto regulatory climate.

Ripple, under the leadership of Brad Garlinghouse, is actually well positioned to capture all these changes and the anticipated policy shift of the new administration. In fact, it could greatly ease the regulatory environment for Ripple’s operations, as well as future growth.

If the regulatory changes are going to affect the entire cryptocurrency industry, then those rules will provide a great foundation for other companies to follow in the future. It is worth noting that these changes may change the sector and the ways in which businesses conduct compliance.

The U.S. hiring and business development are already on the rise for Ripple. This change also means Ripple is building to participate in the long-term growth of the U.S. market.

Ripple’s market analysts believe this is how the company will support the movement in the market. Secondly, it also lays the groundwork for their technologies to be adopted more widely across the wider crypto world.

Conclusion

Trump dinner meeting with Brad Garlinghouse was strategic and may lay the road to future U.S. regulatory treatment of crypto companies, leading the way for a new era of U.S. crypto policy and regulation.