Breaking news for the entire cryptocurrency market! On July 13, Ripple Labs won a victory in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York when Judge Analisa Torres ruled in favor of the company in a controversial case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2020.
Ripple’s triumph – XRP is not a security
According to the documents filed, Judge Torres ruled in favor of Ripple Labs, stating that XRP is not a security when programmatically sold on digital asset exchanges and in many other forms of token distribution.
However, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also scored its own victory when the judge ruled that XRP is a security when sold to institutional investors, satisfying the Howey test.
The SEC’s lawsuit sought to force Ripple to stop offering the XRP token on the assumption that XRP was a security, requiring additional regulation.
Long battle successfully concluded
The wording of the court’s ruling reports:
“Defendants’ request for a favorable judgment is granted for programmatic sales, other distributions, and the Larsen and Garlinghouse sales, while denied for institutional sales.”
The case against Ripple had been pending since December 2020, when the SEC brought suit against Ripple and their two CEOs, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen, accusing them of offering unregistered securities.
Over the past three years, the case has taken a dramatic turn, involving the disclosure of the “Hinman Documents” and the continued resistance to the SEC’s accusations. Experts predict bipartisan appeals of Judge Torres’ decision and attempts by both the SEC and Ripple to obtain better verdicts.
XRP took off, launching a massive altcoin rally
It has long been predicted that the verdict in the Ripple case, would be crucial for the entire cryptocurrency market, including altcoins in particular. This is what happened. In just four hours after Judge Torres published the ruling, the price of XRP managed to increase by nearly 97%, reaching $0.93.
XRP’s effect was mirrored by the aforementioned altcoins, which also made huge bumps. Among them are Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), and Polygon (MATIC), noting jumps of several percent in value in a short period of time.
Meanwhile, the hype around XRP may continue for a long time to come. Mainly due to exchanges such as Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, and Gemini, which the same day announced the restoration of XRP trading for their users in the United States.
