In brief
- The SEC sued the crypto company Ripple late last year, alleging that it sold XRP tokens as unregistered securities.
- Ripple has filed a motion to dismiss the suit.
Emboldened by recent wins in its ongoing legal battle with the SEC, Ripple has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit entirely.
The crypto company, which is responsible for the XRP token, was sued by the regulator late last year. Announcing charges against the company and two of its top executives, the SEC asserted that XRP is an unregistered security, and that “Ripple sold XRP widely into the market, specifically to individuals who had no ‘use’ for XRP as Ripple has described such potential ‘uses’ and for the most part when no such uses even existed.”
Monday’s filing follows US District Court Judge Sarah Netburn’s decision to grant a string of other recent motions from Ripple. One allowed for redactions in certain documents and email exchanges, and another will expose internal SEC writings about Bitcoin and Ethereum. The hope with the latter is that the defense will be able to use the SEC’s own language about Bitcoin and Ethereum to argue that XRP should be excluded from securities laws.
Netburn also said that Ripple’s top executives weren’t required to expose the personal financial information the SEC had been asking for—another win for the company.
When charges were announced in December, XRP was the third most valuable cryptocurrency. And while some institutions linked to Ripple have since ditched their partnerships, citing legal risks, retail traders are apparently undeterred. Other coins were outpacing XRP for a few months, but in recent days the token has climbed its way back to the fourth-largest market capitalization in crypto.
XRP trading has been halted on many of the major exchanges, from Binance to Kraken. But Ripple’s recent legal wins, combined with a generally bullish crypto market, are helping drive the price of the token. It’s up by 35% today alone, currently trading for $1.77. That's its highest price since January 2018.