By
Steve Muchoki
April 19th, 2024
Ripple’s XRP registers a solid move as the Judge grants the company to present its defense in response to SEC’s Memorandum of Law.
The cryptocurrency market has posted major gains in the last 24-hours by surging past $2 trillion valuations. However, the biggest gainer in the top-ten crypto-list is Ripple’s XRP registering 20% intraday gains.
As of press time, Ripple‘s XRP is trading at a price of $0.88 with a market cap of $42.3 billion. Over the last week, XRP has registered a staggering 44% gain. On-chain data provider Santiment reported that the XRP price gains also come after a surge in the active addresses. It notes:
“XRP is +37% the past 4 days, and finally is reacting to its daily active address uptick that started in mid-January. #XRPNetwork‘s coin currently sits a tick above $0.82 and is outputting the same addresses as it did in early November at $1.18″
The Ripple vs SEC Case
Ripple’s legal battle with the US SEC has escalated further. However, things are turning in favor of Ripple as of now. As per the recent court documents, Judge Analisa Torres has granted Ripple the permission to respond to SEC’s Memorandum of Law.
The judge noted that this permission is under the ‘fair notice defense’ offered to Ripple. Besides, Judge Torres has asked unsealing of three documents pertaining to the case. The judge noted:
The three documents were the notice of Brad Garlinghouse’s deposition in the SEC formal investigation, a Chris Larsen email string, and a Brad Garlinghouse’s email string.
However, crypto lawyer Joh Deaton, who represents thousands of crypto lawyers explains that there are two potential moves that the SEC can make. He believes that the unsealed emails and legal notices are barely relevant. Deaton further added:
“It will be near impossible to prove any real correlation between #XRP’s price and public announcements by @Ripple (ie partnerships). The SEC must also prove Garlinghouse and Larsen sold #XRP in the USA. In reality, the SEC’s case may be so weak and desperate that it believes the only way to win is to prove that #XRP itself is a security per se. The SEC, in essence, is asserting a “but for” theory in this case”.
Many analysts believe that Ripple’s case with the SEC will reach its conclusion in the first half of 2022. Well, this could turn out to be a net positive for Ripple investors.