A turning point in the lawsuit between Ripple and the SEC. At a hearing on Tuesday, April 6th, the court granted Ripple Labs’ request for access to SEC documents concerning Ripple.
These documents include the SEC’s own internal discussions on the nature of XRP compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum. Indeed, according to the SEC, the cryptocurrencies BTC and ETH are commodities. In contrast, XRP would be a security, so the sale of XRP would have been illegitimate because it did not comply with US law.
However, the SEC’s internal documents may say something else, namely that XRP is much more similar to Bitcoin and Ethereum than the lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission would suggest.
Indeed, Ripple itself, when it announced the SEC’s legal action in December 2020, defended itself by citing Bitcoin and Ethereum and arguing that the SEC wanted to stifle innovation. For the SEC, in fact, the main difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum and Ripple is that BTC and ETH are decentralized, while XRP is not, and most tokens are held by Ripple.
However, Ripple would like to call some very special people to testify in the trial: investors who bought XRP.
The impact of the Ripple-SEC lawsuit on the price of XRP
In any case, the turnaround in the court action seems to be benefiting Ripple’s price.
After collapsing to below 20 cents following the announcement of the lawsuit, XRP has returned above $1 for the first time in three years in recent days. After yesterday’s retracement, a trend in line with the market, today XRP gains 2% and is at 94 cents. It is worth mentioning that in November, i.e. before the judicial storm hit, XRP’s rally had ended at the 70-cent mark. This value has been significantly exceeded this week.
Exchanges also seem to be returning to an optimistic outlook, with rumours that several platforms are ready to re-list XRP. If this happens, the price of the Ripple token could be positively affected.
