What to know
- Ripple executives revive claims of hidden pressure against XRP’s rise.
- Brad Garlinghouse says fear of XRP shaped years of hostility.
- Old Ripple suspicions return as executives revisit XRP resistance claims.
Ripple executives during a session at the recently concluded XRP Australia 2026 event described what they saw as a long-running negative campaign against XRP and the people behind it, with CEO Brad Garlinghouse saying the resistance was not imagined and had been felt across Ripple’s early years.
According to Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple had always sensed an “invisible negative force” working against XRP behind the scenes during its early days. He explained that the feeling did not come from one isolated incident, but from repeated moments of hostility that seemed to follow the company as it built its payments business and expanded its presence in the digital asset sector.
Monica Long, Ripple’s President, also reflected on that period and recalled the intensity of the backlash directed at Ripple. She said there was absolute vitriol toward the company at the time, adding that it often felt like a “mysterious dark cloud” hanging over Ripple, with executives unable to clearly identify where the pressure was coming from or why the criticism was so persistent.
Garlinghouse then highlighted comments that Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen had made for years. He said Larsen had long argued that Ripple and XRP were facing an invisible negative force attacking them in different ways.
At the time, Garlinghouse admitted he did not fully embrace those concerns and instead stayed focused on building the company and controlling what Ripple could control. However, he said, with the recently circulated Epstein files and conversations about Ripple in those documents, Garlinghouse admitted that Larsen’s concerns became clearer to him.
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Brad Garlinghouse Says Chris Larsen’s Warnings Now Look Different
Specifically, Garlinghouse said Larsen had repeatedly claimed that Joey Ito, who ran the MIT Media Lab, had something out for XRP and Ripple. He explained that he once viewed those claims with caution, but said later developments caused him to look at them differently.
Garlinghouse noted that Gary Gensler later became part of the MIT Media Lab environment, and he said those links seemed more significant in hindsight. He added that after seeing the public Epstein files, some of Larsen’s long-held concerns no longer looked as far-fetched as they once did.
More importantly, Garlinghouse said the reason behind the pressure was simple. They were “afraid of Ripple.” He said they were afraid because the technology was ahead of its time and because it represented a threat. He added that efforts were made to put pressure on the company, and he now believes some of those early warnings were real.
Long’s account supported that broader picture, as she described an environment where hostility toward Ripple felt unusually sharp and difficult to explain. Taken together, the remarks presented a clearer view of how Ripple’s leadership now interprets its early battles around XRP, not as random criticism, but as sustained resistance tied to what the company was building.
Those comments now stand as one of Ripple’s clearest public descriptions of how its executives viewed the pressure surrounding XRP during the company’s formative years.
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