Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the US SEC is set to drop its appeal in its case against Ripple, nearing the end of a legal battle over XRP ongoing since 2020
Earlier reports said that the long-standing legal battle between Ripple and the agency is nearing its end. — What to know:
Context & Ripple Effects
The case has repeatedly narrowed without fully resolving the regulatory status of XRP. The SEC dropped its claims against Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen in 2023, after a judge rejected an earlier SEC bid for an interlocutory appeal over the ruling on programmatic XRP sales.
The agency later filed an appeal seeking to overturn that retail-exchange sales ruling. Garlinghouse’s statement therefore matters less as a new merits decision than as a potential retreat from the last major appellate challenge in the case.
First-order effects
- If the SEC withdraws its appeal, Ripple avoids continued appellate litigation over the ruling covering XRP sales on retail exchanges.
- The reported move would reduce a central legal overhang for Ripple, XRP holders, and market participants that have followed the case since 2020.
Second-order effects
- A withdrawn appeal would leave the underlying district-court ruling in place rather than producing an appellate ruling that could have clarified the issue more broadly.
- Other crypto firms facing SEC scrutiny would gain a prominent example of litigation limiting the agency’s theory for certain exchange-based token sales, though the result remains specific to this case.
Third-order effects
- If this outcome is followed by similar enforcement retreats or settlements, crypto regulation may be shaped more by case-specific court outcomes than by a single, nationwide judicial standard.
- The absence of appellate review would preserve uncertainty: market participants may treat the Ripple ruling as influential, but not as a definitive rule for every token or sales structure.
The trend: This is one data point in the shift from broad crypto enforcement battles toward narrower, fact-specific legal boundaries for token transactions.