The American Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officially announced this on Wednesday initiated an appeal against the final ruling in the case against Ripple Labs. The specific grounds of the SEC’s call remain secret thus far, leaving the XRP community in the dark. Pro-XRP advocate Bill Morgan does, however clarified via X that the secondary market status of XRP, for example its sale on US crypto exchanges, is not in question.
XRP status on the secondary market is safe
Morgan emphasizes the distinction between different types of sales and emphasizes the nature of the sales that are contested in court. “There is some confusion on this issue about the issue of secondary sales,” Morgan notes of
Morgan explained that the court’s decision did not address the case secondary sales. He writes: “Judge Torres did not rule on secondary sales in the sense of sales made by you and me when we go public and sell XRP to other retail investors.” He points out that this specific type of transaction remains outside the scope of the appeal. “The judge made this clear in a footnote to the summary judgment decision,” Morgan added, clarifying that “that issue has not yet been decided and therefore cannot be the subject of the appeal.”
According to Morgan, the scope of the SEC’s call is limited. “The remedy in terms of liability is limited to Ripple’s programmatic sales or other sales and distributions,” he said. Morgan also suggests that the appeal could extend to other legal areas: “The appeal could obviously extend to issues relating to sentence, injunction and the issue of remission.”
In a recent conversation, Morgan recalled conversations with former SEC attorney Marc Fagel. “I recall that we both agreed that it was highly likely, although not certain, that the call would be limited to issues related to programmatic sales and other distributions,” he shared, indicating a consensus on the likely focus of the SEC’s challenge.
Meanwhile, FOX Business journalist Eleanor Terrett brought today, via X, attention is paid to the procedural aspects of the appeal procedure. She reported, “The SEC has not yet filed its Form C with the Second Circuit detailing exactly what they are appealing. They must do this immediately, so that Ripple knows how to proceed.” She also noted that Ripple has a deadline for its response, saying: “Ripple also has 14 days from today to file a cross-appeal if they wish.”
Expectations are high within the legal community that Ripple will respond with a cross-appeal. Commenting on this, Morgan simply said, “I find it hard to believe that Ripple won’t file a cross-appeal.” Fred Rispoli, founder of HODL Law, predicted via X: “SEC will appeal. Ripple will appeal. The SEC cases ending the district courts against Coinbase and Kraken continue. Life goes on. Don’t panic.”
Notably, so does Ripple Chief Legal Officer (CLO) Stuart Alderoty suggested in his latest post on
At the time of writing, XRP was trading at $0.5281.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com