XRP’s daily spot trading volume grew by 100% in Q4 to reach $600 million

What’s new? Fintech company Ripple, which developed the payment protocol and XRP token of the same name, released a report for the fourth quarter, where it called the past year “banner” for its history and noted successes in the area of global business development. For example, from October through December, daily XRP trading volumes on the spot market grew 75-100% from the lows of the previous reporting period to an average of $600 million.

Ripple’s report

What else is known? An important event for the company was the clarification of the legal status of XRP due to a partial victory in court against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), proceedings with which lasted since the end of 2020.

The regulator categorized XRP as a security and considered its initial sales to be in violation of the law. In July this year, the court ruled that the asset itself and most sales and distributions were not investment contracts, hence were legal, including purchases on crypto exchanges.

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The court later denied the SEC’s motion for an interlocutory appeal, after which the regulator withdrew the lawsuit against Ripple’s top executives Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen. “The ruling was a resounding win not just for Ripple, but for the entire crypto industry,” the company wrote, explaining that it set a precedent for other projects in the US and laid the groundwork for determining that tokens are not themselves securities.

However, at the same time, the court recognized that institutional sales still fall under the definition of investment contracts and should have been registered with the SEC. At the moment, the parties are conducting proceedings on this issue: at the request of the regulator, the company must provide the court with financial statements.

The company emphasized that even before the July court ruling, it had changed the way it sold XRP, and would continue to do so in accordance with the legal standards formulated by the court.

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Speaking about global development, Ripple emphasized that in Q4 the company was officially approved in leading markets. For instance, it received a full Major Payment Institution (MPI) license from the Central Bank of Singapore and registration as a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) from the Central Bank of Ireland. Ripple also holds a BitLicense in New York and has obtained money transmitter licenses in nearly 40 US states.

At the time of writing, XRP is ranked sixth in the cryptocurrency ranking by market capitalization with a figure of $28,38 billion and is trading at $0,5217 on Binance, having added 0,79% overnight. Weekly growth, according to data from the CoinGecko aggregator, amounted to 4,5%.

On January 31, hackers broke into Chris Larsen’s personal wallets, stealing $112,5 million worth of XRP. The incident became the largest in a month.