- All charges against Ripple were dropped by a California judge, except one.
- The SEC lowered the $2 billion fine to $102.6 million.
- XRP is down 4% since June 2023, despite positive developments.
A California court ruling favoring Ripple Labs in its ongoing legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sent ripples through the cryptocurrency market, yet the price of its XRP token has rather stayed unfazed.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton ruled that the that Ripple did not violate US securities laws, stating that the court “declines to find as a matter of law that a reasonable investor would have derived any expectation of profit from general cryptocurrency market trends, as opposed to Ripple’s efforts to facilitate XRP’s use in cross-border payments, among other things.”
Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer, Stu Alderoty, pointed out that one of the allegations is going to trial, and his firm is looking forward to the cross-examination, adding:
“The CA judge dismissed all allegations suggesting that Ripple violated federal securities law. The NY ruling that XRP is not a security stands undisturbed.”
The SEC initially sought $2 billion from Ripple, later reducing the amount to $102.6 million, while Ripple’s legal team countered with a proposed fine of no more than $10 million. The regulator justified the revised penalty by citing that the higher fine-to-profit ratio for Terraform Labs ($3.587 billion/$420 million) is much higher than Ripple’s 11.7%. The regulator took into account Ripple’s profits worth $876.3 and came up with a penalty of $102.6 million.
Amid these ongoing disputes, the SEC faced internal challenges with the resignation of David Hirsh, agency’s Chief of the Crypto Asset and Cyber Unit.
According to CoinMarketCap, the price of XRP has fallen 3.55% in the past 24 hours and is trading at $0.4714 at the time of writing. The altcoin remains 87.76% lower than its all-time high of $3.8 witnessed six years ago in 2018. Despite recent optimistic developments, XRP has underperformed, down 4.52% since June 2023.
XRP’s lackluster price action threads bare the unpredictable nature of the crypto market, where even favorable regulatory rulings seldom guarantee renewed investor confidence.
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