Ripple v. SEC case update as of September 18, 2023

While the cryptocurrency community is waiting for the official conclusion of the protracted court standoff between blockchain company Ripple and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), legal expert Bill Morgan took to Twitter (now X) to clear up a few misconceptions regarding the case.

Specifically, commenting on the X post by user CryptoGeek, who shared the news of Ripple opening up its Liquidity Hub to Brazil and Australia, claiming that Ripple has begun the use of XRP in those countries for payment transactions, Morgan said that this was incorrect in his post on September 15.

Liquidity Hub issue

As the lawyer subsequently stated, as Ripple’s enterprise-level crypto trading platform, created specifically to allow businesses to buy, sell, and hold digital assets, and therefore not intended for retail traders, “Liquidity Hub does not use XRP anywhere yet.”

Furthermore, replying to user MicahPW20, who noted that Liquidity Hub originally did not include XRP “because of legal BS” and that it was now “the only one with legal clarity,” but that Ripple still has not added it to Liquidity Hub, Morgan explained that things were not as black and white as they might seem:

“XRP has clarity as not itself a security, but Ripple’s use or sales does not have final clarity given the SEC’s intent to appeal. If Ripple uses XRP in LH can it or its customers be certain this will not attract SEC enforcement until the lawsuit & any appeal is finally resolved.”

On top of that, the legal expert said that it made sense that Ripple would feature Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), USD Coin (USDC), and Tether (USDT) in Liquidity Hub “given they are amongst the most liquid cryptos,” and that “Ripple will be more responsive to the needs and demands of its shareholders and customers than XRP holders.”

As a matter of fact, he further clarified that this had a lot to do with the legal case against the SEC and the XRP community, as well:

“As the XRP community was happy to accept when Ripple argued that there was no common enterprise between XRP holders and Ripple, there are no rights against Ripple from the purchase of an XRP token, and Ripple has no legal obligations to XRP holders.”

Effect on progress

More recently, Morgan commented on the joint venture between Ripple, Tranglo, and SBI Remit with a focus on introducing Ripple’s XRP-enabled remittance solution to bank accounts in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia, arguing that “this expansion would have happened earlier except for the lawsuit.”

Meanwhile, lawyer Jeremy Hogan pointed out the fact that a federal judge had recently allowed the sale of digital assets belonging to the failed crypto exchange platform FTX, including XRP, “back into the secondary market, those sales must be legal and exempt from SEC registration requirements.”

“Last I heard, the [Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)] doesn’t sell cocaine it confiscates back to the cartels.”

As things stand, the XRP token that is at the center of the long-running legal saga was at press time changing hands at the price of $0.4912, down 0.76% on the day, up 1.04% across the previous week, and losing 2.59% on its monthly chart, as per the data on September 18.

Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.