Ripple celebrates end of lawsuit against SEC

For four years, the legal battle between Ripple Labs and the US regulator SEC lasted until the responsible judge in New York now issued a landmark ruling: Ripple must pay a US$125 million fine.

"The SEC's request for damages [...] is granted in part and denied in part," reads the court document signed by US Judge Analisa Torres. Ripple management is exuberantly celebrating the ruling as a victory over the SEC, as the latter had demanded a fine totaling US$2 billion against the company behind the XRP token.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is enthusiastic, writing in a new X post: "This is a victory for Ripple, the industry and the rule of law. The SEC's resistance to the entire XRP community has been broken." Just last week, he had sharply criticized SEC boss Gary Gensler. The regulator would "follow a political agenda and/or malicious litigation tactics," Garlinghouse claimed in his sharp statement.

What does Ripple's success mean for the crypto sector and Gary Gensler?

Back in July 2023, Ripple won an important interim victory in the lawsuit: Judge Torres ruled then that XRP is not a security in connection with private investor transactions. But when sold to institutional investors, the XRP token must be considered a security.

This is precisely the point the SEC addressed in its lawsuit against Ripple Labs. Although the fine imposed is still significantly higher than the US$10 million proposed by Ripple itself, the SEC's anti-crypto campaign seems to be slowly failing.

"The SEC's witch hunt against us is finally over. Let's all hope this ends this government's war on crypto," Ripple-Labs co-founder Chris Larsen responded to the ruling in an X-post. As recently as October, the SEC asked that the lawsuit against Ripple CEO Garlinghouse and Larsen be halted, after previously accusing them of "illegal securities sales."

The verdict will now give both men personal satisfaction. For SEC boss Gary Gensler, on the other hand, it will be tougher - recently Donald Trump promised to fire him on the first day of his presidency if the Republicans win the election. Trump said that Gensler's current regulations are stifling innovation and that he wants a more crypto-friendly environment. If Gensler does get fired, it could lead to looser rules and possibly a boost for the crypto market.

XRP share price rises 20 percent after victory

While almost the entire crypto market went into bull mode last fall, XRP clearly lagged behind. Some even spoke of an "XRP-stablecoin" because of the token's lackluster performance, which could never again reach its January 2018 all-time high of 3.84 US dollars.

Since the beginning of the week, XRP could significantly outperform both BTC and ETH according to Tradingview But after the verdict, there is now movement in the XRP price again. With the announcement of the lenient fine, the price of US$0.504 shot up more than 20 percent and at the time of writing stands at US$0.616. XRP was also above US$0.60 last week, but that was before the big crypto crash of last "Black Monday."

Against Bitcoin and Ethereum, the Ripple token was able to rise more than 20 and 30 percent, respectively. Despite this recent success, the future of the XRP token seems uncertain. The altcoin is seen as highly centralized and, according to critics, too dependent on the development of the Ripple Labs company, which could be successful in the long run even without the adoption of XRP.