Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says Linqto’s 4.7M Ripple shares were bought on secondary markets, not through a direct sale by the company.
Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, has clarified that Linqto, an investment entity under investigation by the US Department of Justice (DoJ), owns 4.7 million shares of Ripple.
Garlinhouse distanced its business from Linqto, which is currently being investigated by federal investigators, by claiming that the blockchain firm never sold any shares it owned, all purchased through secondary markets.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, has responded to mounting apprehension from people who thought they were buying Ripple stock via Linqto, an investment platform.
Garlinghouse claims that Linqto presently owns 4.7 million shares of Ripple, all of which were purchased from current owners through the secondary market rather than directly from Ripple.
He further underlined that Ripple has no official business engagement with Linqto and has not sold any shares to the platform.
The CEO of Ripple posted the following message on the X platform:
“Ripple has never had a business relationship with Linqto, nor have they participated in our financing rounds. We stopped approving more Linqto purchases on secondary markets in late 2024 amid growing skepticism”.
The announcement was made in response to demands from retail investors for clarity regarding the state of their purported shares in Ripple.
Ripple is in hot water once more, just as it was recovering from its protracted SEC case.
However, to avoid upsetting the federal authorities, Brad Garlinghouse is straightforward.
As the SEC case draws closer, Garlinghouse concentrates more on developing Ripple and XRP and growing the company’s market presence.
Bankruptcy Is Coming For Linqto
With 13,000 users, Linqto faces insolvency, and its pledge to “democratize” access to pre-IPO Ripple shares is quickly falling apart.
About 11,500 Linqto users had invested in special purpose vehicles (SPVs) that were purportedly set up to hold Ripple shares, according to lawyer John E. Deaton, who last week called the scenario a “total clusterfuck.”
The assertion that up to 5,000 such investors might not be accredited is very worrisome.
Ripple Chief Technology Officer David Schwartz explained that investors did not directly hold Ripple shares just before Brad Garlinghouse’s explanation.
Schwartz wrote, “You own a portion of a legal entity that owns the shares, but you don’t own the shares directly.”
