By Katherine Ross. July 13, 2023. (Blockworks).
Coinbase will re-enable trading for XRP following a Thursday court ruling.
A U.S. District Judge, Analisa Torres, ruled that Ripple’s XRP is not a security when traded on secondary exchanges, even if its institutional sales do meet that definition — handing Ripple partial victory in a case that dates back to 2020.
Following the ruling’s release, Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal tweeted that “it’s time to relist” XRP.
By Charles Gasparino. June 17, 2023. (New York Post).
Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler’s regulation of crypto is an uneven mess; digital-coin exchanges get approved by the commission to go public, only to be sanctioned later for selling crypto the agency doesn’t like. The securities laws aren’t clear if he has necessary legal authority to weigh in as he has done, but that hasn’t stopped Gensler from bringing a slew of cases.
There is a decent case to be made Gensler’s regulatory agenda is dangerous as well, and not just for the usual reasons involving aggressive enforcement that could crimp crypto’s possibly revolutionary blockchain technology. It’s also because the SEC, known as Wall Street’s top cop, has been looking lately like a band of keystone cops.
Consider the strange case of a company called Prometheum that critics allege appears to have slipped through some very large SEC cracks to become a thing in the $1 trillion crypto business.
By Roslyn Layton, PhD. June 13, 2023. (DC Journal).
In February, I filed a motion to intervene in SEC v. Ripple Labs, the first big crypto enforcement action filed in December 2020 by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). I have written two dozen stories about the serious implications of the case, particularly on the sweeping regulatory overreach at the heart of the SEC’s arguments and the naked power grab it represents.
The agency spent most of the last two years fighting Ripple’s attempts to obtain internal SEC emails and documents on the drafting of a 2018 speech given by then-Director of Corporation Finance William Hinman where he introduced a long list of “what we look at” when determining whether a digital asset is a security.
By Jeff Wilser. June 13, 2023. (CoinDesk).
XRP’s uber-passionate supporters believe the SEC unfairly targeted Ripple for securities violations while mysteriously giving Ethereum a free pass. Do they have a point?
Brad Kimes is a professional drummer. For 30 years he played in various bands — rock, funk, blues, R&B, you name it. Between gigs, he worked as an aspiring entrepreneur, and he invented a baby playpen that you could use on the beach. He found suppliers in China. Kimes soon became a global importer, and to make cross-border payments, he was forced to use the clunky international banking system called “SWIFT.”
SWIFT was not swift. It was slow and costly. “There’s no tracking ID,” says Kimes. “And when the payment gets there six days later, you find out there’s a currency manipulation that had taken place. And you have to pay the difference.”
By Jason Gottlieb. June 13, 2023. (Bloomberg Law).
As Congress once again takes up the question of legislating digital assets and the Securities and Exchange Commission launches new broadsides against major industry players, remember what’s at stake in the fight over digital assets.
This fight isn’t just about cryptocurrency. It’s a much larger battle for the right to your digital life, and whether you actually own or control any part of it.
Everything is becoming digitized. Your emails, texts, tweets, photos, and videos are all a stream of digital encodings. Your phone calls are broken into digital pieces and conveyed in ones and zeroes. Your public persona is digital—your Facebook, Twitter, online dating profile, company webpage. Your entertainment is digital. Your Google searches. Your interactions with AI chatbots.
By Bary Rahma. June 9, 2023. (Be In Crypto)
From humble beginnings in the law offices of New York City to the high-stakes courtroom of the US District Court, Judge Analisa Torres has built an illustrious legal career defined by rigor, integrity, and an unerring commitment to justice.
Born into a family deeply rooted in the justice system, Torres was no stranger to the inner workings of US law. Her father, Frank Torres, served as a New York Supreme Court justice, while her grandfather, Felipe N. Torres, was a Family Court judge.
Torres’ own journey in law began in earnest with her education at Harvard College and Columbia Law School. After graduation, she served as a real estate associate at various law firms in New York City. Her tenure as a judge began with the New York City Criminal Court. She then served as an acting justice of the New York Supreme Court in the Bronx.
The pinnacle of her career came in 2013 when President Barack Obama nominated her as a US District Judge for the Southern District of New York.
By Nikhilesh De. June 5, 2023. (CoinDesk).
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued crypto exchange Binance, the operating company for Binance.US and Binance founder and CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao on allegations of violating federal securities laws on Monday.
Binance, Binance.US and CZ offered unregistered securities to the general public in the form of the BNB token and Binance-linked BUSD stablecoin, said the suit, which also alleges that Binance’s staking service violated securities law. There are similar charges against BAM Trading – the operating company for Binance.US – and Binance itself, including failure to register as a clearing agency, failure to register as a broker and failure to register as an exchange. The SEC also alleged that Binance allowed for commingling of customer funds, that CZ was “secretly” controlling Binance.US and that a CZ-owned and operated entity was inflating Binance.US’sding volume.
The suit also alleged multiple times that Binance allowed U.S. persons (meaning U.S. citizens or people living in the U.S.) to trade on its platform, despite saying it wasn’t.
By John Deaton. May 26, 2023. (Blockworks).
If the crypto industry hadn’t yet appreciated the scale of the danger posed by the SEC’s legal theory at the heart of its long-running lawsuit against Ripple and the XRP token, it seems to have finally hit home for many when news broke about Grayscale’s attempted SEC registration of its Filecoin Trust.
When you consider the Grayscale news, the SEC’s recent claim that Algorand constitutes an unregistered security, and the Coinbase Wells notice, the SEC’s war on crypto becomes clear.
As amicus counsel for 75,000 plus XRP holders, I’ve spent more than two years warning anyone who would listen about the outrageous arguments being made by the SEC.
The SEC’s central theory in the Ripple case is that the XRP token itself is a security. The allegations are not limited to transactions offered by Ripple or its executives. The SEC is arguing all sales of XRP, regardless of the seller or the circumstances surrounding the sale, constitute the transfer of securities. From the very first one in 2013, onward into perpetuity — including on the secondary markets between parties who have nothing to do with nor even knowledge of a company called Ripple.
The SEC based this on the allegation that the “very nature” of a digital asset is to be a security and nothing else, making XRP “the embodiment” of an investment contract with Ripple no matter who holds it, uses it or sells it.
By Jared Whitley. May 23, 2023. (Townhall).
Blockchain technology is the next generation of technical evolution born from American innovation – much like the first radios, computers, or the once quaintly named world wide web. The technology likely won’t replace the U.S. dollar but it will transfer a lot more power over financial transactions into the hands of individuals – which was the whole idea when it was invented many years ago after the financial crisis.
Naturally, the big banks who finance the Democratic Party don’t like that, and the point-man in their war on crypto is Securities and Exchange Commission Chairperson Gary Gensler.
Both tensions and blood pressure are on the rise as the crypto industry anticipates summary judgment in the SEC v. Ripple Labs lawsuit. There have been reports that a ruling in the high-stakes case could be settled any day.
The SEC, in what’s become a pattern, slapped a lawsuit on the payments software company back in 2020, claiming they had been selling the XRP token to crypto exchanges without registering them as securities. Ripple counters that the XRP assets are commodities, and the XRP buyers are not investors in their company. The company’s software product uses XRP as a bridge currency for instantly settling cross-border payments without fees.
By Sebastian Sinclair. May 17, 2023. (Blockworks).
Ripple has secured a small victory against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) — shutting down the agency’s motion to seal internal files known as the “Hinman Speech documents.”
Those documents consist of SEC drafts and emails relating to a speech given by William Hinman, former Director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, more than four years ago.
Hinman’s speech reportedly indicated the agency did not consider ether a security at the time. Ripple lawyers have fought to learn more about how Hinman came to that conclusion, which could impact XRP’s own classification.
According to Tuesday’s filing, the SEC made an attempt to justify the need for confidentiality, contending their lack of relevance to the summary judgment motions and potential disclosure could significantly harm the agency’s interests.
Judge Analisa Torres disagreed in the filing, which triggered an 8% rally for XRP.
“Regardless of whether the court ultimately determines that the Hinman Speech Documents are admissible, or whether the court relies on the documents in ruling on the summary judgment motions, they are judicial documents subject to a strong presumption of public access because they are ‘relevant to the performance of the judicial function and useful in the judicial process.’”
