Ripple's CTO warns of possible RLUSD supply constraints and price volatility

Ripple Labs wins SEC case, judge rules XRP is not a security

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Written on Jul 13, 2023
Reading time 3 minutes
  • The SEC vs Ripple Labs case had dragged on for about three years.
  • Ripple’s win is seen as a major victory for the cryptocurrency market.
  • At press time, the price of Ripple’s XRP has jumped 30% and was still climbing.

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On July 13, Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern New York district of the United States district court ruled in favour of Ripple Labs in the case against the United States Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC). The case has been ongoing since 2020 when the SEC sued Ripple Labs for issuing what the regulator termed as an unregulated security.

The judge has ruled that the Ripple (XRP) token is not a security.

A big win for the XRP token and the entire crypto industry

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The SEC lawsuit claimed that XRP was a security and thus required additional regulation, and it sought to compel Ripple to stop selling its XRP token.

However, according to the court ruling:

“Defendants’ motion for summary judgment is GRANTED as to the Programmatic Sales, the Other Distributions, and Larsen’s and Garlinghouse’s sales, and DENIED as to the Institutional Sales.”

The ruling comes a month after the SEC was compelled to release the Hinman speech documents which showed that the former director at the SEC had stated he did not view Ethereum (ETH) as a security. Ripple’s lawyers relied on the speech to show SEC’s bias towards Ripple while also using the Howey test to prove its case that XRP was not a security.

The ruling is not only a win for the XRP token, but for the entire cryptocurrency market that has been under siege from US regulators in the recent past. Just today, Celsius was sued by the SEC and also fined $4.7 billion by the US Federal Trade Commission. Binance and Coinbase are also facing charges by the SEC for selling what the regulator terms unregistered securities.

Ripple (XRP) price

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Besides XRP, which jumped by 30% after the news of the win broke, the entire crypto market is on fire with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) surging by 1.46% and 4.04% respectively.

XRP price chart. Source: Coinmarketcap

The global crypto market cap has also gone up by 2.76% to $1.22 trillion just after the ruling. The effects of the ruling are expected to be felt for the coming days within the entire crypto market seeing that it gives hope that the cases against other crypto entities for similar charges can be won.

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