A resurfaced clip from Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s appearance at XRP Australia Sydney 2026 is drawing fresh attention after he linked Ripple’s early battles to material in the latest Epstein document release. The comment matters because it reframes Ripple’s long-running grievance in Washington and in crypto itself as something deeper than routine rivalry: a sign, Garlinghouse suggested, that parts of the industry saw Ripple as a real threat.
Speaking on stage in Sydney on Feb. 27, Garlinghouse said Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen had long sounded “a little conspiratorial” about the forces lining up against the company. Then he added:
“Now that we have seen the public Epstein files, you’re like, holy shit, he’s kind of right. And what’s interesting about it, they were afraid of us. They were afraid of us because the technology was ahead of its time and it was a threat. And they were trying to do things to put pressure on it. And again, I don’t think I totally appreciated in the earliest days how prescient some of Chris’s concerns were about that stuff. But in retrospect, it was.”
Holy sh*t he was right.
The Connection Between Ripple And EpsteinThe video is only now circulating widely in XRP circles, but the backdrop is the Justice Department’s Jan. 30 release of more than 3 million additional pages under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
That distinction is crucial. Ripple appears in the documents because it was part of an early power struggle over which crypto networks and companies would win capital, talent and legitimacy. In one quoted passage from the 2014 correspondence, Hill wrote: “Ripple, and Jed’s new Stellar are bad for the ecosystem we are building, and it does our company damage to have investors who are backing two horses in the same race.” He then reportedly urged investors to “reduce or take your allocation away,” effectively forcing a choice.
At press time, XRP traded at $1.34.
