SEC Planning To Pile On Ripple With Another Lawsuit

Ripple just isn’t having a good time of things. The SEC stands as the latest figure planning to sue Ripple, claiming that the firm is allegedly selling unlicensed securities by way of XRP tokens according to Fortune.

Playing The Court Of Public Opinion

Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, seems to have taken a cue from Coinbase. Much like the exchange’s front-running of an expose surrounding the treatment of employees of color from the New York Times, Garlinghouse has taken this issue to the Court of Public Opinion. In a strange move, he posted the entire issue on Twitter for the world to see.

Today, the SEC voted to attack crypto. Chairman Jay Clayton – in his final act – is picking winners and trying to limit US innovation in the crypto industry to BTC and ETH. (1/3) https://t.co/r9bgT9Pcuu

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) December 22, 2020

The SEC couldn’t legislate Bitcoin or Ethereum, thanks to the decentralized nature of the assets themselves. XRP, however, doesn’t have that saving grace. The asset is closely associated with Ripple, and has been a center of criticism by many in the crypto space due to how highly centralized it is.

One of the more controversial parts of the matter is the fact that Ripple as a company boasts an escrow account holding about 50 million XRP, which stands at half the total supply of the currency. David Schwartz, the CTO of Ripple, has since claimed that the creators of the third-largest cryptocurrency had “gifted” the firm with it.

Never Seeming To Give Up

Ripple stands defiantly against everything that’s been thrown at it. Acrimonious splits between the company’s original founders piled on top of class-action lawsuits, but the firm itself stands as one of the richest companies in the fintech space.

The firm has managed to keep a reserve estimated to be worth close to $25 billion, with most of it being held in XRP. This price estimate even comes after the dramatic nosedive of 14.5% that happened to the cryptocurrency’s price after the potential lawsuit hit the news.

At this point in time, everyone is very well aware that XRP itself is incapable of not being labeled a security, so it will be interesting to see what Ripple does to work itself out of it.

Quite Some Creative Play From Ripple

In its latest bid, a Wells submission document was posted to Ripple’s website. In this document, the firm tried to hitch itself to other cryptocurrencies. Ripple’s angle this time is that the SEC has no right to deem XRP an investment contract while not doing the same for other crypto assets such as Bitcoin.

The regulator is playing who wins and loses in the virtual currency game by doing so, according to the fintech firm. Ripple boldly claims that this, in turn, destroys the innovation and consumer-friendly nature of the process, which is a stretch, but let’s see where it goes.