- Ripple announced that the SEC’s lawsuit against the firm is over.
- Ripple Labs’ XRP cryptocurrency spiked over 13% on the news.
- It is another indicator of shifting regulatory tides for crypto under the Trump administration.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is dropping its case against Ripple, the blockchain firm that fell into regulatory crosshairs over its issuance of the XRP cryptocurrency.
The case, brought by the SEC under President Joe Biden, claimed that XRP was an unregistered security. Industry players said that a win by the regulator would have fundamentally reordered the crypto space by defining most tokens as securities under the purview of the SEC and forcing them to comply with the full range of securities laws.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced the news in a video posted Wednesday morning on X, citing that the update marks the end of a chapter in the recent history of the crypto market.
“Just over four years ago, the United States SEC filed its lawsuit against Ripple. I’m finally able to announce that this case has ended — it’s over,” he said.
A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment.
The XRP token spiked as much as 13.73% on the report, reaching a $2.54 price.
Under former Chairman Gary Gensler, the case against Ripple was part of a larger regulatory effort to clamp down on the crypto industry through enforcement actions. Cases were also opened against exchanges such as Coinbase, Kraken, and Binance.
After an SEC US district judge handed Ripple a partial win in 2023, the agency appealed the decision.
Now, the regulator is dropping the case, marking a sea change for the cryptosphere and further emphasizing Washington’s seriousness about becoming an ally to the industry.
Regulatory shifts first began after President Donald Trump took office in January. The SEC quickly dropped Biden-era lawsuits and created a crypto task force to clarify securities law in the digital assets space.
In late February, the agency dropped a similar lawsuit against Coinbase. Shares of the largest US crypto exchange rose 3.12% on the Ripple news.
Previously, crypto experts suggested that the SEC’s handing of the Ripple case could be indicative of a deeper regulatory shift.
“If they drop that appeal and they settle with Ripple, that would be another sort of different step, because then they’re withdrawing specific theories they have that tokens are securities,” Zack Shapiro, head of policy at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, told Business Insider in February.
