What Would A Ripple Win Against The SEC Mean For The XRP Price?

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Last Updated on 16 February 2021 by CryptoTips.eu

Jeroen Kok

Jeroen is one of the lead copywriters on Cryptotips.eu and discusses all recent events in the crypto market. This includes news updates, but also price analyzes and more. He developed his passion for cryptocurrency during the bull run in 2017. He has learned a lot since then. The combination of cryptocurrency and creative writing is perfect for Jeroen and an excellent way to share his knowledge with a wide audience. Find me on LinkedIn / jeroen@cryptotips.eu
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Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse is normally a busy man this time of year. From attending (virtual) Davos conferences to promoting XRP to possible venture capitalists on Wall Street and the gleaming capitals of several Asian tiger economies, Garlinghouse is keen on traveling the world and telling everyone about his blockchain solutions.

However, the SEC lawsuit hangs like a sword of Damocles over his company and keeps him occupied.

Advertentie.

Unregistered digital asset

In essence, Ripple Labs stands accused by the SEC (the Securities and Exchange Commission) of having sold almost $1.4 billion worth of XRP in (what the lawsuit claims are) “unregistered digital asset securities sales” ever since 2013.

Ripple labs defends itself that XRP is a cryptocurrency and therefore falls outside of the SEC jurisdiction.

The rest of the cryptoshpere has made it clear that it and Ripple Labs are not the best of friends (Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum has been especially harsh in his comments), but is looking in detail as to what happens in the trial.

Several cryptocurrency exchanges, fearful of having regulatory eyes spy over them, have immediately suspended trading of XRP, and in response class actions against Ripple and several of those exchanges were filed in California and Florida by angry investors.

Settlement with SEC?

Because of the above, Ripple saw the value of it’s native token XRP plummet in December and January to a low of around $0,25 to $0,30, up to a point where it even lost it’s fourth place on CoinMarketCap’s ranking to the absolute winner of 2021 so far, Cardano (which is positioning itself as a true Ethereum killer as of late). And has now slipped underneath Polkadot in fifth as well.

Since a few weeks, and especially since Brad Garlinghouse has made it clear what Ripple’s strategy of response would be, the SEC has seen it’s side divided into two camps:

One that apparently is keen on settling with Ripple, and another that wants to pursue the case as an example for the rest of the cryptosphere.

Social media rumor has it that Ripple has already offered a settlement to the SEC and that the SEC will likely accept that settlement before or shortly after the February 22 initial hearing on the case. This would be the reason why XRP has been steadily climbing over the past few days and weeks again.

If the SEC and Ripple indeed reach a settlement by or before that date (aka in a week from now) technical analysts assume that the fourth biggest cryptocurrency could see a jolt in its price in the short term.

According to contrarian investor CryptoWhale this could resemble its 2017 run as XRP is the only of the major cryptocoins that hasn’t entered a bull market just yet.