The SEC filed a lawsuit in December 2020 against San Francisco-based firm Ripple Labs. The fintech firm allegedly raised funds through the sale of digital assets known as XRP in unregistered securities. It’s been more than two years, but a concrete outcome to this litigation seems far away.
Furthermore, repetitive delays are making things worse for XRP holders who blamed the SEC for the same.
Different executives at Ripple have blamed the SEC for “deliberately mudding” the regulatory waters for the crypto market. Ripple general counsel Stuart Alderoty asserted his views in ablog on 13 June that highlighted the repercussions of the speech given by one of the agency’s former officials.
<p lang=«en» dir=«ltr» xml:lang=«en»>4 years since the (in)famous Hinman speech, and we’re nowhere closer on knowing how to classify digital assets in the US – keeping every crypto, including ETH, in regulatory limbo. I penned some thoughts for @Fortune why enough is enough, @SECGov. https://t.co/FB16cceaia— Stuart Alderoty (@s_alderoty) June 13, 2022
William Hinman served as the Director of Corporation Finance at the SEC. In his now-infamous 2018 speech, he declared that Ether [ETH], ‘despite its well-publicized ICO in 2014’ had magically morphed from a security to a non-security. Hinman justified his conclusion, claiming Bitcoin [BTC] as “decentralized” (and thus, not security). Likewise, ETH had become “sufficiently decentralized” over time.
Ripple fought back, claiming that the then-Director of Corporation Finance, had categorized Ether and Bitcoin. Similarly, by-association XRP is a non-security due to being “sufficiently decentralized.”
Nonetheless, the SEC countered the argument by claiming that the speech was the director’s own personal
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