TL; DR
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Ripple only scored one partially wins in its case against the SEC, and now the Commission wants $2 billion in fines before going after the Ethereum Foundation.
Full story
In the words of your parents when your father got a new job out of state, and you had to move away from all your friends:
“You’re going to hear rumors, so we might as well tell you now…”
While, yes – Ripple scored one partially wins its case against the SEC, which alleged that the company sold unregistered securities (aka: ‘illegal investment products’)…
It wasn’t a closing victory.
The judge ruled that the ‘programmatic sale’ of XRP did not constitute the sale of unregistered securities.
(I.e. selling the XRP token on crypto exchanges, such as Coinbase, was not illegal).
Buuuut, the private sale of XRP tokens to institutional investors, did check the ‘unregistered security’ box.
…and now the SEC wants its pound of flesh.
The Commission even went so far as to increase its original request from 2019, which asked for $1.7 billion in damages, increasing that amount to a nice round of $2 billion.
Good news:
As far as we can tell, this should not have a negative impact on the broader crypto industry – the public sale of crypto tokens is still protected by law in the US.
Bad news is:
If a crypto project has ever sold its token privately (which a lot of have) – the SEC will use its new-found legal precedent to collect fines.
(As if there are rumors that they just done with the Ethereum Foundation).