Former SEC chief drops bombshell on Ripple case

With the cryptocurrency community still awaiting the final conclusion of the legal battle between Ripple and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the regulatory agency’s former chairman, Jay Clayton, believes both sides might appeal Judge Analisa Torres’s decision.

Indeed, Henri Arslanian, a crypto host, author, and co-founder of crypto hedge fund Nine Blocks, interviewed Clayton during an episode of his The Future of Money podcast published on January 28, asking him about his views regarding the Ripple case, which was his last case before he left the SEC.

As it happens, legal expert and popular commenter on the case, Bill Morgan, shared an excerpt from the video originally posted by X user Digital Asset Investor on February 4, commenting that it seemed like Clayton “expects both sides and certainly the SEC will appeal the Torres decision.”

Furthermore, he voiced his opinion that the former SEC chief still had close contacts at the institution, which means that neither the XRP army nor the crypto community at large should disregard his views and expectations regarding this prolonged court standoff.

Clayton’s views on Ripple v. SEC

Specifically, Clayton argued that the Ripple case’s final resolution was still far from happening, considering the currently pending appeals and the possibility of further petitions to the court regarding its decisions, specifically what it considers a security transaction and what it does not. As he explained: 

“If you look at the distinction (…) between securities transactions for the purpose of capital raising, where we have very rigorous regulations, and then securities regulation for secondary trading – you look at what the court did, it said, ‘hey, that capital raising transaction was a securities transaction.’ Then, the court found that the secondary trading transaction and its definition of the secondary trading transaction was not. We’ll see how that goes on appeal. We’ll see how both of them go on appeal.”

On top of that, the former SEC boss said that his main point was that “we rigorously regulate the raising of capital from the general public, and that has not changed,” in response to which Digital Asset Investor added a video of Ethereum (ETH) founder Vitalik Buterin talking about fundraising in crypto for his platform.

Elsewhere, the XRP token that was at the center of this lawsuit is currently changing hands at the price of $0.51, recording a decline of 1.42% on the day, as well as losing 4.06% across the previous week and dropping 10.68% on its monthly chart, as per data on February 5.

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