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Popular XRP community member and expert Ashley Prosper highlights several factors suggesting that the multi-year legal tussle between the SEC and Ripple has ended in a settlement, but this remains speculative.
Ashley Prosper made this known in a recent X post.
“I can’t say that Ripple and the SEC have reached a settlement. But, I CAN say… it looks that way,” Prosper remarked.
Factors Backing Prosper’s Assertions
The prominent XRP community member further highlighted several factors he believes support his assertion.
First, he mentioned the recent Second Circuit ruling in the SEC v. Govil lawsuit, where the court denied the commission’s request to reverse its decision on disgorgement. Notably, the court held that the SEC is not entitled to disgorgement from the seller if the buyer suffers no financial losses.
Second, Prosper characterized the SEC’s remedies-related brief as terrible for failing to identify a single institutional investor who incurred economic losses from purchasing XRP from Ripple.
According to him, another factor suggesting that the SEC and Ripple might have reached a settlement was the occurrence of a settlement conference, which took place without the defendant submitting its remedies-related reply brief.
Recall that the parties had a settlement conference on March 29 at 03:10 PM (ET). The conference was in line with the court’s directive, which ordered the parties to convene at least one hour before the final pretrial conference by April 16 to explore the possibility of settling the case. According to Prosper, the settlement conference took longer than anticipated.
SEC Now Focused on Other Crypto Entities
In addition, Prosper pointed out that the SEC has shifted its attention away from Ripple and is now focused on charging other crypto-related entities, including Ethereum and Uniswap.
For instance, the SEC launched an investigation that could potentially classify Ethereum as a security. It also sent a Wells Notice to popular Ethereum-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap.
Furthermore, the XRP enthusiast mentioned Ripple’s plan to launch a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar and the shocking release of 500M XRP from the company’s escrow account.
Following the unscheduled release of the 500M XRP, Ripple enthusiasts speculated that the crypto payments company plans to use the funds to fulfill its settlement obligations.
Lastly, the expert highlighted the upcoming SEC’s Sunshine Act meeting as another factor indicating that the parties have settled. It bears mentioning that the SEC recently conducted a closed-door meeting on April 11.
A Few Corrections
However, it remains unclear whether the parties have reached a settlement, as Prosper and other XRP enthusiasts speculated. The lawsuit is still in the remedies stage, with Ripple expected to file its opposition to the SEC’s brief by April 22.
In a subsequent disclosure, Prosper corrected some of his remarks, confirming that there is no settlement conference scheduled for April 16, as earlier noted. In addition, he stressed that the reason behind the uncharacteristic 500 million escrow unlock had been spotlighted.
For context, The Crypto Basic confirmed this morning that this escrow unlock came up to complete the 1 billion token quota scheduled for each month. Notably, the transactions, which Ripple scheduled for April 1, merely suffered a delay. Despite these corrections, Prosper continued to speculate based on the rest of his assertions.