On October 31, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall US Courthouse in New York, ordered the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to file its brief on or before January 15, 2025. This follows the SEC’s October 24 request to extend the deadline for its main order until January 15, 2025.
The US SEC filed the appeal following Judge Analisa Torres’ final ruling, which concluded that XRP sales on cryptocurrency exchanges do not constitute investment contracts under the Howey test. However, Judge Torres ordered Ripple to pay a $125 million fine for violating SEC securities laws in XRP sales to institutional investors.
What next for the Ripple vs SEC case?
While the Ripple vs. SEC case awaits a hearing and ruling from the Second Circuit of Appeals, the crypto community hopes that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will win the election. Furthermore, Trump has promised to promote crypto development in the United States by firing SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and hiring Web3 experts.
If Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris wins the election, experts believe the crypto persecution will continue for the next four years.
Meanwhile, Ripple is forcing the Second Circuit Court, through its pre-argument statement, to uphold Judge Torres’ ruling, which largely deemed XRP not a security under the Howey test.
Impact on the XRP market
Mainstream adoption of XRP has slowed significantly in recent years due to ongoing legal uncertainties. The rise of other cryptocurrency projects, which offer the same web3 functionality as XRP, has been a huge blow to the Ripple ecosystem.
Most importantly, the SEC’s case continues to play out during the expected alternate season in the coming months. As a result, Wall Street analysts believe that the XRP price could underperform again in the 2024/2025 crypto bull market.
The large-cap altcoin, with a fully diluted valuation of about $51 billion and a daily average trading volume of about $1.4 billion, is trapped in a multi-year symmetrical triangular pattern.
