Seeds of Wisdom RV and Economic Updates Tuesday Evening 3-25-25

26/03/2025

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RIPPLE OPTS NOT TO CROSS-APPEAL AS SEC CASE NEARS RESOLUTION

Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty posted on Wednesday on X his potential “last update” on the case. Alderoty noted that this would all be subject to a commission vote, final documents and standard court processes

▪️Ripple has decided not to file a cross-appeal, signaling that its long-running legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is nearing an end, the firm’s chief legal officer said Wednesday.

▪️Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty posted on Wednesday on X his potential “last update” on the case following four years of back and forth between the two. Last week, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that the SEC had pulled its appeal of part of an earlier ruling.

A cross-appeal, which allows both sides to challenge different aspects of a court ruling, could have given Ripple a chance to contest its $125 million liability, but instead, Alderoty said the SEC will keep part of that amount and return the rest to the firm.

“The SEC will keep $50M of the $125M fine (already in an interest-bearing escrow in cash), with the balance returned to Ripple,” he said. “The agency will also ask the Court to lift the standard injunction that was imposed earlier at the SEC’s request.“

The SEC declined to comment. Alderoty noted that this would all be subject to a commission vote, final documents and standard court processes.

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Analisa Torres ruled in July 2023 that some of Ripple’s sales, called programmatic, of XRP did not violate securities laws because of a blind bid process in place for them. Torres, however, ruled that other direct token sales to institutional investors were securities.

That second part regarding institutional investors meant that Ripple would be fined $125 million.

The SEC has taken on a new direction since the new Trump administration rolled in, following former Chair Gary Gensler’s exit in January. Under the previous Biden administration, Gensler had said most cryptocurrencies were securities and called on crypto platforms to register with the agency. While the agency brought cases against major crypto exchanges and firms under Gensler’s reign, the case against Ripple was brought before Gensler became chair.

Over the past several weeks, the SEC has rescinded controversial crypto accounting guidance, looked to re-examine rules affecting crypto, created a crypto task force and issued statements on memecoins and proof-of-work.

@ Newshounds News™
Source: The Block

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RIPPLE WALKS AWAY PAYING JUST $50 MILLION TO SEC OVER XRP LAWSUIT

The SEC first sued Ripple Labs in 2020.

Ripple Labs has agreed to pay a $50 million fine to end the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s years-long investigation into the Ripple-linked firm, the company’s Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty said on Tuesday.

“The SEC will keep $50M of the $125M fine,” he wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, referring to the penalty Ripple Labs was ordered to pay by a New York court in August over unregistered XRP sales to institutional investors.

Alderoty said that Ripple has meanwhile agreed to drop its cross-appeal of U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres’ decision, which found that XRP is “not necessarily a security on its face,” especially within the context of programmatic sales to unknown buyers.

The SEC, under the leadership of former Chair Gary Gensler, sought a $2 billion penalty against ripple labs for what it claimed were unregistered securities transactions. The SEC first brought its lawsuit against Ripple Labs during President Donald Trump’s first administration.

Alderoty’s declaration follows Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s recognition that the SEC’s case has ended. He described it as a “long overdue surrender” on the regulator’s part last week.

The SEC’s about-face was widely expected following Trump’s reelection. Since Acting SEC Chair Mark Uyeda took over the agency’s reins, it has retreated from several enforcement cases, including those against the crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken.

Alderoty said on Tuesday that the decision is subject to Commission vote, echoing a video posted alongside Garlinghouse’s announcement last week.

A Ripple spokesperson told Decrypt then that the “timeline is completely in the SEC’s control,” and it may take “several weeks” for the case to be officially withdrawn.

@ Newshounds News™
Source: Decrypt