With many in the cryptocurrency community eagerly waiting for the protracted legal standoff between the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple to end, some outside developments might influence its progress and final results.
As it happens, the SEC has also sued crypto trading platform Coinbase, but the crypto exchange responded with a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in August 2023, Judge Katherine Failla heard it on January 17, 2024, and her ruling might have a significant impact on the SEC’s case against Ripple.
Coinbase effect
Specifically, the SEC alleges that Coinbase’s proposed lending product involves securities, whereas the crypto firm refutes this claim and argues that it falls outside the regulator’s jurisdiction. Indeed, this resonates with the allegations regarding XRP, i.e., that Ripple’s sales of it fell under the securities category.
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Should Coinbase win the motion, it might undermine the SEC’s argument regarding its jurisdiction over firms and assets in the crypto sector and deter it from appealing the ruling in the Ripple case (which the regulator signaled it plans to appeal) due to the similarities between the two cases.
Setting record straight
Meanwhile, legal expert Bill Morgan decided to fight the “moronic FUD” (‘fear, uncertainty, doubt’) about the case that has been pushing down the price of XRP and set the record clear, pointing out several important matters, including that the settlement is out of the question.
Furthermore, he drew attention to the fact that the SEC had filed a motion to compel Ripple to open its 2022-2023 books and post-complaint institutional contracts, to which the blockchain company replied by referring to the request as untimely and irrelevant, as Finbold reported on January 26.
Amid several back-and-forth replies between the two sides that followed, Morgan had earlier accused the SEC of misleading the Court by incorrectly using the class action case of Zakinov v. Ripple in its Binance case, saying this happened “far too often,” which he reiterated in the recent thread.
Finally, the lawyer stated that:
“It seems Judge Torres needs to rule on the SEC’s motion to compel quickly as the current remedies phase timetable requires remedies-related discovery to be completed by 12 February,” as he concluded the X thread shared on February 1.
In the meantime, the XRP token that has been at the center of this case was trading at $0.503, recording an increase of 1.88% on the day, a 3.18% decline across the previous week, and a drop of 10.89% over the past month, as per the most recent data retrieved by Finbold on February 2.
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