Crypto lawyer and XRP supporter John Deaton says he may have discovered “damaging” information in the court documents in the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against Ripple.
the barrel tells are 266,600 Twitter followers that Ripple’s opposition cites an email from the SEC that there are reasonable grounds for not believing that XRP passes all factors of the Howey test.
The Howey test was developed by the Supreme Court to determine whether an asset is a security based on whether or not investors expect to gain profit from the efforts of others.
Deaton says about the email,
“The SEC wanted all statements from SEC personnel to be redacted and it appears they all were. What this tells me is that the statement about XRP not satisfying Howey is NOT a direct quote from a senior SEC official – otherwise it would be acted upon.
I have concluded that that statement was made by a market participant independent of Ripple, not the SEC, but that it was referenced by someone in Hinman’s emails, or that the third-party email was forwarded to Hinman or the email group discussing the speech.
I always want my comments to be based on facts, so I’m making this clarification. While not a direct quote from an SEC official, it is still hugely damaging as it shows that XRP was discussed. Someone at the SEC passed this XRP opinion to the email group for a reason.”
In 2020, the SEC sued Ripple Labs, the issuer of payment token XRP, for illegally selling unregistered securities. The lawsuit is pending, but Ripple expects summary proceedings this year.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ordered documents related to the highly publicized “Hinman emails” to be unsealed for public access.
The documents include internal SEC deliberations regarding a speech by former SEC official William Hinman in 2018 when he stated in his official capacity that he believed that both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are not securities.
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