‘This Is Not Journalism’: Ripple CEO Takes Aim at NYT

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has criticized the New York Times over a recent “hit piece” targeting the new administration of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 

He believes the article constructs a false narrative about why the SEC is dropping crypto cases.

The NYT frames the SEC’s retreat as political favoritism, but Garlinghouse argues that the retreat is actually a necessary correction of an “illegal” and legally unsound enforcement strategy pursued by former Chair Gary Gensler.

The Ripple boss has specifically criticized the NYT for omitting key context regarding federal judges who slammed the SEC’s behavior during the previous administration. This refers to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, where judges called the SEC’s denial of a Bitcoin ETF “arbitrary and capricious.” In the Debt Box case, a federal judge sanctioned the SEC for making “materially false and misleading representations.”

“This is not journalism. This is actively advancing a false and failed narrative,” Garlinghouse said. 

“Crypto dementia” 

Other industry voices of the likes of Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at Coinbase, and Alex Thorn, head of firmwide researchat  Galaxy Digital, have also criticized the prominent media outlet over the recent article. 

Grewal argues that the article’s headline and tone imply corruption, yet the reporters openly admit they found no proof of it. If there is no evidence of pressure or influence, he argues, then the narrative of political favoritism is fabricated.

Thorn claims that the Times is relying on the Gell-Mann amnesia effect, meaning that the readers are too uninformed to realize that the previous administration’s behavior was the actual anomaly. The analyst believes that the previous strategy was legally and politically unsustainable, accusing the NYT of prompting “crypto dementia.”