Breaking: US SEC drops case against Ripple’s Larsen and Garlinghouse

• SEC “surrenders” as it drops its case against the top two executives of Ripple. 
• The price of XRP immediately skyrocketed on the back of this news. 

In an unexpected move, the United States Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) dismissed its case against Ripple’s top executives. The ones in the spotlight today are Brad Garlinghouse – the CEO of Ripple, and Chris Larsen – the co-founder of Ripple.

According to a filed document shared by James K Filan – former Federal Prosecutor, the SEC said,

” (…) the claims alleged by Plaintiff Securities and Exchanges Commission against Defendants Bradley Garlinghouse and Christian A. Larsen, for aiding and abetting Defendant Ripple Labs, Inc.’s (“Ripple”) violations of Sections 5 of Securities Act of 1933 with respect to Ripple’s offers and sales of XRP in “Instituational Sales” (see ECF No. 874), are hereby dismissed in their entirety without costs or fees”

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Ripple celebrates the “surrender”

Speaking about this new turn of events, the Chief Legal Officer of Ripple, Stuart Alderoty — highlighted that this was not a “settlement” but, in fact, a “surrender by the SEC”. He also claimed that suing Garlinghouse and Larsen was “a serious mistake” of the commission, resulting in their capitulation. He further said,

“That’s 3 consecutive wins for Ripple including the July 13 decision ruling that as a matter of law XRP is NOT a security, the Oct 3 decision denying the SEC’s bid for an interlocutory appeal, and now this.”

The news has resulted in the price of XRP skyrocketing in the market. According to CoinMarketCap, Ripple’s XRP was trading at $0.510 with a market cap of over $27 billion. The altcoin’s price registered a growth of over 4% in the past hour, with the past 24-hour chart following a similar trend. In the past seven days, the coin’s value witnessed a growth of over 6%.

SEC’s failure against Ripple

Notably, the Securities Commission has only been on the losing end ever since it launched a lawsuit against Ripple in December 2020. In its case, the commission rested that XRP was a “security” and accused Ripple, its CEO Garlinghouse, and co-founder Larsen of illegally raising over $1.3 billion in unregistered securities by offering XRP.

Realistic or not, here’s USDC’s market cap in XRP terms

However, instead of settling the case with the SEC like all other crypto projects, Ripple chose to confront the regulator in court. This decision saw the crypto firm, for the first time in its history, take a massive win back home. In July 2023, XRP was declared as not a security in itself but its sale to institutions did form an investment contract.

Post this, the SEC also lost its interlocutory appeal earlier this month, and now, the commission sees its third biggest loss against Ripple. Speaking about the latest development, Ripple’s co-founder Chris Larsen said in a statement,

“Today, we are legally vindicated and personally redeemed in our battle against a troubling attempt to abuse the rules in order to advance a political agenda to suffocate crypto in America. It is a travesty that we were forced to defend ourselves from an ill-advised attack that was flawed from the day it was filed”

XRP traders and investors must note that the dismissal of the lawsuit still depends on court approval.