Bitcoin and all other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies gained in Friday afternoon trading in Asia. The gains come after Ripple Labs achieved a partial victory on Thursday when a U.S. court ruled that Ripple Labs’ programmatic sales of the XRP cryptocurrency did not qualify as the offer and sale of investment contracts. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2020 accused Ripple of offering XRP as an unregistered security. The judgment marks a significant milestone in the three-year legal tussle between the San Francisco-based payments firm and the U.S. regulator. XRP rallied over 62% in the past 24 hours.
See related article: What is XRP and what is Ripple?
XRP leads crypto market rally
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, gained 2.46% to US$31,115 in 24 hours to 4 p.m. in Hong Kong, and increased 3.69% on the week, according to CoinMarketCap data. Ether strengthened 6.46% to US$1,991 and rose 7.26% in the last seven days.
Boosted by the ruling on the SEC-Ripple case, XRP led a rally in the crypto market on Friday, rising 62.71% to US$0.7674 and bringing its weekly gains to 65.47%.
In a summary judgment on Thursday, New York Southern District Court Judge Analisa Torres ruled that Ripple’s programmatic sales of the XRP token on public exchanges do not constitute securities, but the verdict also said that Ripple’s XRP sales to institutional investors violated securities laws.
The SEC first sued the San Francisco-based financial technology firm in 2020 on the grounds that XRP constituted a security.
Ripple’s chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty called the judgment “a huge win” in a tweet on Friday. “The only thing the Court found constitutes an investment contract is past direct XRP sales to institutional clients. There will be further court proceedings only on these institutional sales per the Court’s order,” Alderoty said.
Maybe we can now start a rational conversation about crypto regulation in this country.
— Stuart Alderoty (@s_alderoty) July 13, 2023
Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S., said in a tweet that it is reopening trading of XRP. Other crypto exchanges like Crypto.com also tweeted that it is enabling XRP trading, while Kraken Pro said on Twitter that XRP is “back in full-trading mode” on its platform.
“This can be considered a win because XRP is one of the more centralized foundations, with a prominent figurehead who offered standard sales via exchanges, and formal distribution programs. If XRP is not considered a security, nearly nothing sold via exchanges is,” Vincent Chok, CEO of Hong Kong-based consultancy First Digital, told Forkast in an emailed response.
“If the court states that XRP is not a security, it strengthens the case for many other tokens that the SEC considers a security. The SEC has tried the regulation by enforcement tactic, but this ruling might make it think twice about its past approach,” Chok added.
However, according to Ben Caselin, vice president and chief strategy officer at Dubai-based crypto trading platform MaskEX, the court’s ruling might be cause for some relief among investors, but this tug-of-war is far from over.
“Due to their peer-to-peer and digital native nature, cryptocurrencies do not easily allow for regulation in the traditional sense, but, going forward, if projects and companies who issue tokens want to deal with the general public and institutional investors, they might want to practice more caution compared to a few years ago,” Caselin told Forkast in an emailed response.
XRP’s 24-hour trading volume soared 1,743.38% to US$13.27 billion, while its market capitalization strengthened 64.52% to US$40.85 billion.
The verdict on the Ripple vs. SEC lawsuit also boosted prices of all top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies.
Cardano’s ADA token gained 22.88% to US$0.3526, bringing its weekly gains to 25.91%. Solana increased 31.98% to US$28.75 and is up 47.96% on the week. Polygon’s Matic token strengthened 17.96% to US$0.8555 in 24 hours and 29.4% on the week.
The three cryptocurrencies saw double-digit losses in early June when the SEC labeled the tokens as financial securities in its lawsuits against crypto exchanges Coinbase and Binance.US.
“The resolution of the lawsuit could lead to increased investor and market confidence in XRP [which] could attract new investors and drive greater liquidity and trading volume for XRP,” Minal Thukral, executive vice-president of growth and strategy at CoinDCX, India’s first crypto unicorn, said in an emailed statement on Friday.
The total crypto market capitalization rose 5.59% to US$1.25 trillion, while market volume increased 131.39% to US$70.53 billion in the past 24 hours.
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- Source: https://forkast.news/xrp-leads-gains-in-all-top-10-cryptos-rally-after-ripples-win-against-us-sec/
