Crypto Exchange Uphold Is Standing By Ripple’s XRP. Here’s Why

Most cryptocurrency investors and traders have had plenty of reason to celebrate throughout December and the new year. But the XRP Army is still looking its wound after the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against crypto payments firm Ripple, alleging that XRP is, in fact, a security and that the company’s sales of the asset were illegal.

Since the lawsuit was filed two weeks ago, the price of XRP has dropped sharply—just when the crypto asset appeared poised to recover from its status as “worst-performing cryptocurrency” in the top 10 for two years running.

While most major crypto exchanges, such as Coinbase and Binance.US, have already moved to either delist or halt trading for the token, there’s at least one that is bucking the trend. Uphold, an “anything to anything” exchange that’s done about $8 billion in cumulative trading volume (according to its own figures), will not take any action to change its course on XRP until there’s a definitive ruling against it.

Innocent until proven security

In a statement today, the company announced that it would continue to support XRP until a final judgment declares the token a security.

"We trust that other Exchanges will adopt a similar stance rather than rushing to judgement ahead of the Court's decision," Uphold said, perhaps taking a shot at its competitors that have preemptively taken action to presumably avoid regulatory scrutiny themselves.

Uphold further criticized the SEC's action, suggesting that the consequences of its lawsuit could be very harmful to crypto investors: "An important part of the SEC's remit is the protection of consumers. It is hard to see how a judgment sending XRP to zero and inflicting billions of dollars of losses on retail investors would square with that remit."

Uphold’s CEO, JP Thieriot, had previously expressed a similar view on Twitter last week. Besides stating that this firm would not delist XRP, Thieriot also cautioned against the rush to judgement on XRP, and the potential effects that classifying it an illegal security would have on the market as a whole.

"What if punishing the actions of a couple of parties not only directly harms XRP holders (most of whom probably assumed tacit approval after seven years of inaction) but also threatens to harm participants in similar projects?” Thieriot asked in a tweet.

Besides Uphold, there are a handful of other trading platforms that operate in the US that are taking a “wait and see” approach to XRP for the time being. BTC Markets, for example, has said it has no plans to drop XRP at the moment, despite the SEC lawsuit. And Revolut, while cautioning its users that XRP “could drop to zero,” isn’t halting trading yet either, according to the Irish Times.