Christopher Giancarlo, former chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), has said XRP is not a security.
In an opinion article written by Giancarlo and his current colleague Conrad Bahlke at law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, he has said XRP is not an "investment contract" and therefore not a security according to the SEC's Howey test.
The authors of the article claim XRP "cannot be an investment contract as there is no contract or arrangement to speak of between Ripple and the overwhelming majority of XRP holders. To the contrary, the contracts that Ripple has entered into explicitly exclude general XRP holders as third-party beneficiaries."
According to them, just like Bitcoin and Ethereum are not considered securities by US regulators, XRP is "sufficiently decentralized to avoid regulation as a security."
US regulators have not yet taken a clear stance towards XRP, as they have not yet classified it as a value. Thus, the current president of the CFTC, Heath Tarbert, has said the status of XRP is "unclear" at the moment.
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