XRP climbs above $0.54 as Ripple prepares for lengthy SEC lawsuit and appeals process
- Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer says the SEC lawsuit and the appeals process could go through July 2025.
- XRP holders digest the news of Ripple’s cross-appeal and announcements at Swell 2024.
- XRP gains nearly 2%, back above $0.5400 on Wednesday.
Ripple (XRP) trades above $0.5400 on October 16, Wednesday. The Ripple Swell event announcements and Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) vs. Ripple lawsuit’s appeal process and its timeline are the key market movers for the altcoin.
Daily Digest Market Movers: XRP gains on Tuesday amidst positive developments
- Stuart Alderoty, Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer (CLO) told Fox Business Journalist Eleanor Terret that the SEC lawsuit and the appeals process is likely to drag until July 2025.
- Terret says Ripple will file its own Form-C, meaning the firm will counter the SEC’s appeal against the final lawsuit ruling from August 2024.
- The executive expects the SEC to take 90 days to file their first brief, this would include all the legal arguments that the regulator makes against the payment remittance firm.
- Ripple will file a response and its own brief and the entire process could go through July 2025.
NEW: Just had a great chat with @s_alderoty of @Ripple who gave me a rundown of the appeals timeline.
— Eleanor Terrett (@EleanorTerrett) October 15, 2024
The @SECGov’s last day to file Form C (which will give some level of detail about what it plans to appeal) is tomorrow.
Seven days later, Ripple will file its own Form…
- At Ripple’s flagship Swell conference this year the firm made announcements about its stablecoin project and how the firm is prepared to launch it post regulatory approval.
- President Monica Long explained how XRP will find utility alongside the stablecoin Ripple USD (RLUSD).
Technical analysis: XRP could gain 8%
XRP trades in a rangebound manner between the $0.6649 resistance (September 29 high) and $0.4319 (August 5 low) for nearly two and half months now. The altcoin could extend its gains by 8.42% and head to the psychologically important $0.6000 level.
If XRP rallies higher, it faces resistance at the September 29 high of $0.6649, a level that has not been tested in over two weeks. The target is the March 2024 peak of $0.7429.
The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator turned bullish recently, showing green histogram bars above the neutral line. This implies that there is positive momentum in the XRP price trend.
XRP/USDT daily chart
XRP could find support in the Fair Value Gap (FVG) between $0.4780 and $0.5136, if the altcoin faces a correction. XRP could sweep liquidity at the September 6 low at $0.5000, this level has not been tested as support for over a month.
SEC vs Ripple lawsuit FAQs
It depends on the transaction, according to a court ruling released on July 14, 2023: For institutional investors or over-the-counter sales, XRP is a security. For retail investors who bought the token via programmatic sales on exchanges, on-demand liquidity services and other platforms, XRP is not a security.
The United States Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Ripple and its executives of raising more than $1.3 billion through an unregistered asset offering of the XRP token. While the judge ruled that programmatic sales aren’t considered securities, sales of XRP tokens to institutional investors are indeed investment contracts. In this last case, Ripple did breach the US securities law and had to pay a $125 million civil fine.
The ruling offers a partial win for both Ripple and the SEC, depending on what one looks at. Ripple gets a big win over the fact that programmatic sales aren’t considered securities, and this could bode well for the broader crypto sector as most of the assets eyed by the SEC’s crackdown are handled by decentralized entities that sold their tokens mostly to retail investors via exchange platforms, experts say. Still, the ruling doesn’t help much to answer the key question of what makes a digital asset a security, so it isn’t clear yet if this lawsuit will set precedent for other open cases that affect dozens of digital assets. Topics such as which is the right degree of decentralization to avoid the “security” label or where to draw the line between institutional and programmatic sales persist.
The SEC has stepped up its enforcement actions toward the blockchain and digital assets industry, filing charges against platforms such as Coinbase or Binance for allegedly violating the US Securities law. The SEC claims that the majority of crypto assets are securities and thus subject to strict regulation. While defendants can use parts of Ripple’s ruling in their favor, the SEC can also find reasons in it to keep its current strategy of regulation by enforcement.
Author
Ekta Mourya
FXStreet
Ekta Mourya has extensive experience in fundamental and on-chain analysis, particularly focused on impact of macroeconomics and central bank policies on cryptocurrencies.
