Ripple vs. SEC Lawsuit Update October 16th

TL;DR

• Ripple faced a lawsuit from the SEC over unregistered XRP sales for nearly four years.
• After two recent court victories for Ripple, XRP’s price saw a significant boost.
• Some analysts predict the SEC might either settle with Ripple or drop all charges.

The Final Stage of the Battle is Yet to Come

The lengthy lawsuit between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been going on for nearly four years, but it remains a trending topic in the cryptocurrency space. It all started in December 2020 when the regulator sued the blockchain enterprise, alleging it of selling billions of its native token XRP without first registering it as a security.

Both entities presented their thesis in court over the following years and fired shots at each other. The peak of the battle came in July this year when federal Judge Analisa Torres ruled that Ripple’s XRP sales did not constitute an offer of investment contracts.

The SEC was unpleased and formally appealed the decision at the beginning of September. However, Judge Torres dismissed the watchdog’s intention earlier this month, granting Ripple a second victory in a row.

The positive news (for the crypto firm) propelled a significant price increase for XRP and infused overall excitement in the entire digital asset industry. The asset’s valuation spiked above $0.85 in July but failed to keep the momentum and retraced to approximately $0.50 in the following months. 

While Ripple might seem to have the upper hand in the legal battle, the war is far from over. The final act of the dispute is scheduled for April 23, 2024. It is worth mentioning that Ripple’s management team was recently shaken as its CFO – Kristina Campbell – resigned to join a healthcare company.

Is the SEC Doomed to Lose?

Ripple’s court wins have given analysts to predict that a decisive victory is just around the corner. The prominent US attorney Jeremy Hogan recently estimated that the SEC faces a dead end in the lawsuit and would most likely seek to reach a settlement with the crypto company and the individual defendants.

He assumed there was a 19% probability that the agency would shake hands on a mutual agreement at the end of December 2023.

Others like Yassin Mobarak – founder of the private equity firm focused on startups in the tech sector Dizer Capital – think the SEC might withdraw all charges against Ripple and its CEO Brad Garlinghouse since it is not in its interest to have a trial where “their corruption can be exposed.”