New Delhi, July 13 -- dissolve and distribute XRP holdings to shareholders on a pro-rata basis, or spend years and roughly $150 million fighting a case with uncertain odds.

They chose to fight.

Speaking at the University of Kansas School of Business, Garlinghouse said the decision was far from obvious at the time it was made. "I'm glad in retrospect, but that was not obvious at the time," he told the audience, describing how he and co-founder Chris Larsen had seriously weighed winding the company down rather than entering a multi-year legal battle against federal regulators. Whether to shut down was not a rhetorical question. It was a board-level deliberation with real stakes on both sides.

The SEC's 2020 lawsuit alleged that every XRP...