It has been years of back and forth, and Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are still mired in a legal showdown, though the end might finally be in sight. Citing “two well-placed sources” familiar with the matter, FOX Business journalist Eleanor Terrett reported late Wednesday that the four-year-long case is nearly wrapping up. XRP Lawsuit May Be Wrapping Up Soon Over the past couple of weeks, the SEC has abandoned numerous lawsuits against crypto companies without even a slap on the wrist. These include Coinbase, Gemini, Robinhood, Uniswap Labs, Kraken, and OpenSea, among others. However, the SEC-Ripple case remains unresolved. According to Eleanor Terrett’s March 12 post, the lawsuit was “in the process of wrapping up” as both sides negotiate the details of the August district court ruling. Sources told Fox that Ripple’s legal team is trying to renegotiate parts of a landmark 2023 ruling by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres. That decision ordered Ripple to pay a $125 million penalty for its institutional XRP sales, which the court considered unregistered securities offerings while sparing the enterprise blockchain company the absurd $2 billion fine the SEC had requested. The SEC appealed Torres’ ruling shortly before ex-chairman Gary Gensler’s departure . Ripple contends that if the SEC’s new leadership is aggressively reevaluating its enforcement approach and giving other crypto-related companies a fresh start, it should also not be penalized based on the agency’s previous lack of regulatory clarity. Legal pundits previously offered similar views. As ZyCrypto recently reported , prominent crypto layer James Murphy suggested that the delay in resolving the protracted suit might not be exclusively due to the SEC. In his view, Ripple was actively negotiating with the regulatory agency to get some aspects of Judge Torres’s August ruling vacated. According to Murphy, while the ruling was largely deemed a huge win for XRP investors, the injunction is problematic for Ripple as it could hinder it from accomplishing future plans, such as a public market debut. SEC Reevaluating XRP’s Commodity Status FOX Business senior correspondent Charles Gasparino reported yesterday that the SEC is considering whether XRP qualifies as a commodity rather than a security in its ongoing settlement talks with Ripple. The SEC is weighing similarities between XRP and Ethereum, the industry’s second-largest crypto by market cap. The regulatory agency considers ETH to trade as a “pure commodity” despite its initial issuance through an initial coin offering (ICO), Gasparion opined, and the commission is trying to determine if it can make that case with XRP. “ETH was obviously issued as an ICO; its characteristics on issuance was no different than XRP — both used to finance the buildout of a platform, yet Ripple got sued and Ethereum didn’t because ETH had morphed into a commodity. What is being discussed now is the comparison between the 2 cryptos.” The SEC’s reevaluation of XRP’s trading utility could be key in deciding the final terms of the Ripple case, which could lead to a possible settlement.
