(Bloomberg) -- Brad Garlinghouse said the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s suit against his crypto payments company, Ripple Labs Inc., is “going to be pivotal for the whole industry” and that he expects a decision on the case this year. 

The SEC’s recent increase in crypto enforcement actions is keeping the US behind other countries in terms of establishing productive crypto regulation, he said.

“This is not a healthy way to regulate an industry,” Garlinghouse said during a Bloomberg Television interview on Thursday. 

The SEC sued Ripple in 2020. The regulator alleged that Ripple and its top executives misled XRP investors because it failed to register the digital asset as a security and did not provide adequate disclosure. In September, Ripple filed a motion seeking to dismiss the suit, claiming its XRP token is not a security that is subject to SEC authority. The SEC has also asked for a ruling in its favor without a trial. Garlinghouse said Thursday that Ripple uses XRP to solve problems around cross-border payments and that it is not a security. 

He said there needs to be a clearer rules for crypto in the US and when asked why Ripple didn’t register XRP with the SEC, he said that there wasn’t a way to do so. “It’s a little like putting the cart before the horse,” he said. 

XRP is the sixth-largest cryptocurrency, with a market value of about $19 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.com data. The token fell less than 1% to 38 cents on Thursday, and has risen around 9% this year. 

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