In a landmark development for the cryptocurrency industry, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced today that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has decided to drop its appeal against the company. This brings an end to a protracted legal battle that began in December 2020. Following the news, XRP, the cryptocurrency closely associated with Ripple, experienced a significant surge, climbing 12% in the past 24 hours.
The lawsuit, initiated by the SEC, alleged that Ripple’s sale of XRP constituted an unregistered securities offering, raising $1.3 billion. After over four years of legal proceedings, Garlinghouse declared the SEC’s decision a “resounding victory for Ripple, for crypto, every way you look at it,” in a post on X (formerly Twitter). He hailed the moment as the one the crypto community had been waiting for, calling it a “long overdue surrender by the SEC.”
The legal saga saw District Judge Analisa Torres rule in July 2023 that while XRP sales to institutional investors did qualify as securities, sales to retail investors did not. Subsequently, in August 2024, Judge Torres ordered Ripple to pay a $125 million fine, a considerably smaller amount than the $1.9 billion the SEC had sought.
Despite this partial victory for Ripple, the SEC filed an appeal in January 2025, challenging the ruling that XRP sales to retail investors were not securities. Ripple responded by filing a request for a cross-appeal. However, with the SEC now withdrawing its appeal, Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer, Stuart Alderoty, stated that the company is “now in the driver’s seat” and will evaluate how to proceed with its cross-appeal. He emphasized that regardless of the cross-appeal, today marks a significant victory for the company.
This development comes on the heels of reports indicating that Ripple’s legal team had been negotiating for more favorable terms than those outlined in Judge Torres’s previous ruling. The decision by the SEC to drop the appeal aligns with a recent trend of the agency, under a new administration, closing cases pursued by its previous leadership against other crypto entities like Coinbase, Uniswap, OpenSea, and Robinhood.
The crypto community has reacted positively to the news, with many anticipating that this development could pave the way for the SEC to approve pending applications for XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from various prospective issuers, including Canary Capital, CoinShares, Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree, 21Shares, and Bitwise. The resolution of the long-standing legal uncertainty surrounding XRP is widely seen as a positive catalyst for both Ripple and the broader cryptocurrency market.Sources and related content
