Key Insights
- XRP broke above $3 amid investor optimism around the Ripple vs SEC lawsuit.
- Ripple has paid a $125M fine and withdrawn its appeal, but the SEC has yet to finalise its side.
- Institutional interest is rising meanwhile, with Japan’s SBI Holdings filing for a Bitcoin-XRP ETF.
XRP is back in the headlines once again. The cryptocurrency recently crossed the $3 mark on August 7, being backed by a surge in trading volumes, especially from Korean exchanges.
Investor expectations over the Ripple-SEC legal battle coming to an end have also pushed prices along.
Now, with August 15 set as the deadline for both Ripple and the SEC to provide a joint update to the court, market watchers are preparing for what could be yet another milestone in XRP’s future.
XRP Price Surges on Case Hype
XRP jumped 3% in just 24 hours, moving from $2.91 to a high of $3.02 before settling at $2.98.
This move broke above multiple short-term resistance levels and was supported by rising demand from investors around the world.
According to data from TradingView, XRP rebounded from its 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) around $2.81 on 3 August, and is now trading at around $3.03 as of writing.
The price breakout came alongside strength on the technical side, combined with two major developments:
Firstly, Ripple withdrew its appeal regarding a prior court ruling. And secondly, Japan’s SBI Holdings filed for a Bitcoin-XRP ETF.
Ripple Has Paid the Fine, But the SEC Holds the Final Card
Ripple made two major moves on 27 June. Firstly, the company withdrew its appeal over the court’s decision that institutional XRP sales qualified as securities. Second, it paid the full $125 million civil fine into escrow as expected.
These steps show that the company is willing to bring the long-standing case to a close. However, in U.S. law, both parties must agree and present joint filings for the matter to be fully resolved. At least in the official sense.
So far, the SEC has yet to make its next move, which has kept the lawsuit officially open.
This then begs the question:
What Happens Next in the Ripple Case?
For starters, the SEC is expected to respond to this filing by August 15th, which is seen as a soft deadline for the aforementioned joint court update.
In this regard, legal experts believe the SEC has three options.
Firstly, the agency can choose to withdraw the appeal. It can also request additional time or delay again (which is unlikely, because it would hurt its credibility).
In sum, if the SEC indeed steps back and ends the case, several outcomes might come after.
Ripple could resume institutional operations fully, the $125 Million will go to the US treasury, and 1,700+ confidential contracts might become public.
Overall, whichever outcome happens will set the tone for XRP’s regulatory status (whether as a commodity or as a security). In all, until the SEC takes formal action, the price of XRP is expected to remain in limbo.
XRP’s Use Case and Partial Legal Clarity Boost Appeal
Despite the case dragging on for nearly five years, XRP has shown strength in terms of community and investor support. The initial ruling by Judge Analisa Torres in 2023 already provided partial regulatory clarity.
It split XRP’s classification and labelled its institutional sales as securities, while clearing its programmatic sales on exchanges.
This grey area has still allowed the market to treat XRP as both: A partially regulated asset of sorts, which has been one of its reasons for its strengths so far.
Meanwhile, Japan’s SBI Holdings, a longtime supporter of Ripple, filed for a Bitcoin-XRP ETF.
More reports show that corporations are also diversifying their treasuries with crypto. In fact, some are pledging up to $1 Billion in XRP purchases.
This kind of institutional behaviour is another show of how high XRP is set to fly, once regulatory clarity has been achieved and the ongoing case gets put to rest.
