Ripple secures another win as Judge orders SEC to turn over Hinman documents

Ripple has recorded another win in the company’s ongoing lawsuit with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) after a United States judge overruled the regulator’s attempt to withhold the documents relating to former Division Director William Hinman. 

The documents in contention concern a speech Hinman delivered at a summit in 2018, where he said Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are not securities. Initially, District Court Judge Sarah Netburn declared email and drafts of the speech were not protected by deliberative process privilege.

In the latest decision, U.S. District Court Judge Analisa Torres overruled SEC’s objection to releasing the documents noting that Judge Sarah Netburn made no error in declaring that emails and drafts of the speech were not protected, documents shared by the Federal prosecutor and Ripple enthusiast James Finland on September 29 indicate. 

“The court finds that Judge Netburndid did not err in determining that the Internal Speech Documents relate to the communication of Hinman’s own opinions for the purpose of deciding whether the DPP applies in otherwise making factual determinations about the Internal Speech Documents’ contents,” the court ruled. 

Importance of Hinman’s speech

Notably, the speech is considered a crucial part of Ripple’s evidence in the case where the regulator accuses the blockchain company of violating securities laws in issuing XRP tokens. Initially, SEC had objected to the release of the documents citing attorney-client privilege. 

Furthermore, the outcome of the case is considered to have a potential impact on the value of XRP. Most importantly, the final ruling is expected to clarify the controversial classification of cryptocurrencies as securities. 

XRP reacts to latest ruling 

In this line, if Ripple wins the case, the development will be bullish for XRP. For instance, after the latest court ruling, XRP rallied to trade at $0.48 by press time, with gains of 11% in the last 24 hours. 

Consequently, crypto analyst by the Twitter username CryptoDonAlt notes that if Ripple wins, XRP will record ‘giga pumps’. 

“XRP is basically a court case play. Yesterday’s pump was due to “news” relating to the case. If they win the whole case XRP giga pumps, if they lose, it’ll be a nice -50% candle. Also, an XRP loss would make other cryptos more vulnerable to attack, so you better cheer them on,” the analyst said in a tweet on September 30. 

Despite the depressed market conditions, XRP is recording increased interest from the community. As per a Finbold report, XRP’s three-month social activity hit 1.95 billion social engagements from 9,424 social contributors as of September 29, 2022. At the same time, the crypto community continues to bet on a bullish future for the asset.

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