XRP Price Breaks $3 For The First Time Since 2018

XRP Price Soars Past $3 For The First Time Since 2018 With 8% Pump After Ripple Exec Says SEC Case “Is Just Noise”

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Updated: 16 January 2025

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The XRP price pumped more than 8% to above $3 for the first time since 2018 as Ripple chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty said the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against the company has become “just noise.”

XRP soared to as high as $3.18 in the past 24 hours, but has since pared gains to trade at $3.06 as of 3:02 a.m. EST.

SEC Appeal Brief A “Rehash Of Already Failed Arguments”

Alderoty’s remarks and XRP’s surge came after the SEC filed its opening brief to appeal a final order that was delivered by Judge Analisa Torres of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

#XRPCommunity #SECGov v. #Ripple #XRP @Ripple The @SECGov has filed its opening brief.https://t.co/v0YTjHGxzV

— James K. Filan 🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@FilanLaw) January 15, 2025

In its brief, the regulator said that Ripple executives Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen “offered and sold over $2 billion of crypto asset XRP as investment contracts.”

The regulator added that these sales and offers “were not registered under Securities Act of 1933,” adding that the executives “deprived” investors of “important disclosures that the federal securities laws mandate when securities are offered and sold to the public.

Alderoty said in a Jan. 16 X post that the SEC’s appeal brief is just “a rehash of already failed arguments.”

As expected, the SEC’s appeal brief is a rehash of already failed arguments –and likely to be abandoned by the next administration. We’ll respond formally in due time. For now, know this: the SEC’s lawsuit is just noise. A new era of pro-innovation regulation is coming, and… https://t.co/3ZxO64Fs8C

— Stuart Alderoty (@s_alderoty) January 16, 2025

The Ripple legal chief predicted that the arguments presented by the regulator “are likely to be abandoned” by the Trump administration. He concluded his post by saying that “Ripple is thriving.”

XRP Price Surges, Token Surpasses BlackRock By Market Cap

The surge in the XRP price has boosted the crypto’s market cap to above $175.51 billion, which is more than that of asset management titan BlackRock Inc. (BLK). Yahoo Finance data shows that BlackRock’s market cap stands at $156.92 billion.

In addition to overtaking BlackRock by market cap, the number of worldwide Google searches for XRP was higher than searches for BTC yesterday.