TL;DR
- XRP surged 5% after a judge dismissed the SEC’s appeal in its case against Ripple, ruling in Ripple’s favor in July.
- The SEC failed to prove substantial differences of opinion, leading to the dismissal.
- The legal battle continues with a trial set for April 2024, and Ripple has spent over $200 million in legal expenses.
Ripple Scores Another W
In July, the SEC filed an interlocutory appeal against Judge Torres’ decision, stating that there was substantial ground for differences of opinion on the current matter.
In an Oct. 3 brief ruling, Judge Torres denied the SEC’s motion, claiming the agency had failed to meet its burden of proof — in other words, the SEC couldn’t prove there were controlling questions of law with respect to substantial grounds for differences of opinions on the subject.
Crypto Twitter rapidly shared the news, celebrating another win for Ripple. Meanwhile, XRP hopped on a 5% rally, which is trading at $0.53 at the time of writing, according to data from CoinGecko.
However, don’t count your eggs before they hatch; the fact that Ripple has managed to stay afloat doesn’t mean an outright loss for the SEC. Most likely, the commissioner will try to appeal the case again. Further, the Judge set April 16, 2024, as the trial date in which other pending issues will be addressed.
The legal battle between Ripple and the SEC case has been the largest so far in crypto history, starting in late 2020.
Most of the time, crypto projects that confronted the SEC ended in settlements, but that doesn’t seem to be in Ripple’s plans as the company’s executives, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen, have said they plan to fight the SEC all the way through.
So far, Ripple has spent more than $200M in legal expenses, currently represented by law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP.