John Deaton quotes internal emails from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which say there are reasonable grounds to believe that Ripple (XRP) is not a security.
Ripple (XRP) may not be a security for the SEC
Once again, unveiling a new story about the never-ending Ripple vs SEC lawsuit, was John Deaton, the legal expert who supports XRP.
And indeed, in one of his tweets, Deaton shows some internal emails from the US Securities and Exchange Commission suggesting that there are reasonable grounds to believe that XRP is not a security.
Basically, in the SEC’s internal email, in the footnotes to Ripple’s opposition and reply briefs, XRP is mentioned stating that there are concerns why it does not meet all of Howey’s factors and therefore is not a security.
After so much analysis, Deaton himself admitted that he possibly overlooked a vital detail related to the case.
The confusion may stem from the fact that the statement may not be direct from an SEC official, but rather an SEC official referring to the analysis of XRP done by another person in emails with Hinman, a former SEC official.
Ripple (XRP): is it a security or not? No final verdict yet
The present disclosure does not represent a final verdict on the issue of Ripple (XRP), on whether or not it is a security. In fact, the never-ending lawsuit, which began in 2020, is still awaiting judgment.
Indeed, Deaton, from being a mere legal commentator, active in supporting Ripple, found himself against the SEC lawyers, who allegedly asked in March to ban him from the lawsuit. A request that Judge Torres would not grant.
Attorney Deaton filed 3,000 amicus briefs, as a friend of the court, even revealing the name of the SEC expert who was supposed to testify against Ripple.
Not only that, as early as early 2023, Deaton had already described his thinking that the SEC’s win over the case against Ripple was overstated, namely that it precisely called XRP a security.
According to the lawyer, the XRP token does not comply with the Howey test and, more importantly, contrary to the SEC’s expert’s findings, the XRP community is not a “joint venture.”
XRP price regains altitude
After a price dump in the middle week of May, XRP has now regained altitude, standing as it did last month at $0.46.
It is still far from the high of 2023 of $0.54 touched in March, but certainly well above its low recorded on New Year’s Day, at $0.33.
Despite the pending Ripple vs SEC lawsuit, the crypto remains in sixth place by market capitalization in the overall ranking, with nearly $24 billion in market cap.
XRP’s trading volumes in the last 24 hours are also no different. And indeed, we are talking about nearly $850,000, far higher than other crypto assets, including the meme coin of the moment PEPE.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2023/05/22/sec-ripple-not-security/