Ripple Vows to Fight as SEC Appeals XRP Ruling

Blockchain firm Ripple said it’s prepared to continue its legal battle against the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse made the pronouncement on social platform X Wednesday evening (Oct. 2), hours after the SEC said it was appealing a ruling in its case against the company.

The regulator’s notice of appeal came after Judge Analisa Torres imposed her final judgment in the SEC’s 4-year-old case against Ripple, fining the company $125 million, below the $2 billion sought by the commission.

Torres’ initial ruling, issued last year, was a landmark decision for the cryptocurrency sector. She found that Ripple’s XRP token did not constitute a security when sold to the general public, a decision widely viewed as a blow to the SEC’s efforts to regulate digital assets.

The ruling distinguished between sales of XRP to institutional investors and sales to the public on exchanges. While sales to institutional investors were found to meet the legal definition of an investment contract, sales to the public did not qualify as a security.

In his statement on Twitter, Garlinghouse chastised the SEC, saying the regulator and its chairman, Gary Gensler, need to move on.

“Somehow, they still haven’t gotten the message: They lost on everything that matters,” Garlinghouse wrote. “Ripple, the crypto industry, and the rule of law have already prevailed. While we’ll fight in court for as long as we need, let’s be clear: XRP’s status as a non-security is the law of the land today, and that does not change even in the face of this misguided — and infuriating — appeal.”

If Gensler and the SEC were rational, they would have moved on from this case long ago. It certainly hasn’t protected investors and instead has damaged the credibility and reputation of the SEC.

Somehow, they still haven’t gotten the message: they lost on everything that… https://t.co/1hW7xVSL9b

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) October 2, 2024

The SEC argued in a statement published by CoinDesk that the original decision “conflicts with decades of Supreme Court precedent and securities laws.”

Meanwhile, crypto companies continue to seek regulatory clarity from the SEC. Among them is Coinbase, which last month addressed a federal appeals court in hopes of getting the commission to develop new rules for digital assets.

Coinbase sued the SEC last year after it denied the company’s petition for a new rulemaking. The SEC took legal action against Coinbase last June, alleging the company had let its users trade unregistered securities.