Court reduces the amount of fine requested by the SEC for Ripple by 94%

What’s new? The head of the fintech company Ripple, which developed the protocol of the same name and XRP token with a capitalization of over $34,5 billion, has said that the court reduced the fine demanded by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by 94%: from $2 billion to $125 million. Brad Garlinghouse called it “a victory for Ripple, the industry, and the rule of law.”

Source: X.com

What else is known? Ripple has been in a legal battle with the SEC since December 2020. Back then, the commission accused the company of unregistered issuance of securities in the form of XRP tokens, the sale of which allowed it to raise $1,3 billion.

In 2023, the court partially sided with Ripple, ruling that only direct institutional sales of the asset, but not sales to retail investors through digital exchanges, could be considered a violation. The SEC, in turn, demanded that Ripple pay a $2 billion fine.

The company challenged this demand, citing that the amount exceeds the typical amount of fines for the commission, XRP investors did not suffer losses, and the company itself was not accused of fraud.

In a new filing, Ripple CEO Garlinghouse also emphasized that the court reduced the size of the SEC’s demands, acknowledging that the commission had “overplayed their hand.”

“We respect the Court’s decision and have clarity to continue growing our company. <...> The SEC’s headwinds against the whole of the XRP community are gone,” the senior executive concluded.

Experts of the analytics crypto platform Santiment noted that the capitalization of XRP for the last day jumped by 23%. Large holders of the asset, whose wallets hold from 1 million to 10 million coins, own a record 7,06 billion XRP worth $4,42 billion. In addition, social media discussions about the project have peaked since January this year.

Source: X.com

Even before Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, Garlinghouse allowed the politician to lose the election because of the actions of SEC chair Gary Gensler. He criticized the official for saying that there are many scammers among industry leaders, recalling that the commission failed to protect investors from multi-billion dollar losses as a result of the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange.