Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said Wednesday that his company’s legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has ended.
“As many of you know, just over four years ago, the United States SEC filed its lawsuit against Ripple. I’m finally able to announce that this case has ended. It’s over,” Garlinghouse posted to X.
The price of XRP, the token closely associated with Ripple’s business activities, quickly jumped by more than 8% and was changing hands over $2.50 before dropping slightly, according to The Block Price Page.
“It seems very clear to me that this case was doomed from the start,” Garlinghouse added. “In so many ways, it was the first major shot fired in the war on crypto.”
The SEC’s move to drop its appeal against Ripple comes after the agency has dropped several cases and paused investigations into crypto firms. Last month, the agency dismissed its case against Coinbase, Kraken, among others. The SEC still has to vote officially to drop the Ripple appeal, but the agency can control the timeline.
The case against Ripple has been going on for years. In 2020, the SEC accused Ripple of raising $1.3 billion through the sale of XRP, which it claims is an unregistered security. Then in July 2023, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Analisa Torres ruled that some of Ripple’s sales, called programmatic, of XRP did not violate securities laws because of a blind bid process in place for them. Torres, however, ruled that other direct token sales to institutional investors were securities.
Last August, the judge ordered Ripple to pay $125 million in fines. In October of last year, the SEC appealed the case, and said the district court’s decision conflicted with “decades of Supreme Court precedent and securities laws.”
An SEC spokesperson declined to comment.
Since former chair Gary Gensler exited the agency in January, the SEC has turned a new leaf — seemingly friendlier toward crypto. Under the previous administration, Gensler had said most cryptocurrencies were securities and called on crypto platforms to register with the agency. While the agency brought cases against major crypto exchanges and firms under Gensler’s reign, the case against Ripple was brought before Gensler became chair.
Since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second time at the White House, the agency has rescinded controversial crypto accounting guidance, looked to re-examine rules affecting crypto, created a crypto task force and issued a statement on memecoins.
The crypto task force has its first roundtable on Friday to discuss “defining security status.”
Update: March 19, 2:30 p.m. UTC to include SEC comment and details throughout
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