Ripple XRP and Securities Supervision SEC: Court Temporarily Rejects Settlement
In the mammoth lawsuit of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Ripple and XRP, the next decisions are pending. Ripple even informed the court that it would prefer a negotiated settlement. But it comes differently.
Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are currently in the hot phase of their lawsuit. In December 2020, proceedings began, and the course of the trial, which is being held in New York, regularly makes waves for Ripple’s native cryptocurrency XRP. In June 2023, Ripple recorded a partial victory because the judge in the case stated that XRP could not be classified as an unregistered security in certain trade contexts. However, an appeal process has been initiated against this decision, for which Ripple and the SEC had filed their opening briefs in September.
Meanwhile, Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse had informed the court as recently as October that his company would in principle be ready for a settlement with the SEC. Likewise, there was speculation as to whether newly added SEC Chief Gary Gensler might take a more moderate course than his predecessor. But now, specialized US media agree that a jury has been convened in order to try the case. This development indicates that the previously expected settlement between Ripple and the SEC is currently off the table.
For XRP, the pending verdict in the dispute with the SEC remains an issue, because new regulatory clarity is expected here. The next interim step in the Ripple-SEC trial involves both sides submitting supplementary briefs in mid-November to summarize their positions. The actual trial with a jury might not begin until the second half of 2024 unless a last-minute settlement can still be reached. Meanwhile, XRP trades at prices around $0.50 on leading crypto exchanges and is number 6 of the most valuable global cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization of approximately $27 billion.
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