XRP gains 20% in a day after Ripple makes headway in its court case with the SEC
- XRP rallied as much as 20% on Tuesday, as investors took heart from developments in Ripple's SEC case.
- Ripple's case with the SEC over how the XRP token was sold has been ongoing since late 2020.
Ripple's XRP crypto token rose by as much as 20% on Tuesday, as the payments company made headway in its ongoing court battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to court documents, Judge Analisa Torres late last week said she would allow the unsealing of some documents relating to the case, which has been running for over a year, and relates to how the XRP token was marketed.
XRP shot up from $0.60 on Thursday to $0.90 at one point on Tuesday, according to CoinMarketCap. XRP dropped slightly from these highs on Tuesday to sit at $0.85 at around 06:15 a.m. ET, representing a 12.6% gain over the previous 24 hours.
"Overnight, further updates on the SEC v Ripple case were also XRP positive. The crypto markets reacted favorable to news of case judge Analisa Torres granting a number of motions in favor of Ripple," FXEmpire analyst Bob Mason wrote.
Ripple was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Insider.
Ripple has been engaged in a legal battle with the SEC as of December 2020 over whether XRP should be treated as a security or a cryptocurrency. Ripple executives Brad Garlinghouse and Christian Larsen have always maintained it's a cryptocurrency and, therefore, not subject to the same regulations as stocks.
In a decision late last week, Judge Torres ordered the unsealing of three documents, including email threads from both executives, as well as allowing Ripple to maintain its fair notice defense, under which it can say if it had fair notice or not from the SEC over whether its XRP sales constituted securities sales. The SEC had previously moved to strike such a defense or have it removed from the record.
According to cryptocurrency commentator and legal partner at Hogan Legal, Jeremy Hogan, the fair notice defense is crucial.
"If Ripple wins on the fair notice defense it becomes persuasive authority for ANY CRYPTO company the SEC sues from this point forward. If the fair notice defense survives and Ripple wins, the SEC is going to have an uphill battle winning any other lawsuit they bring," Hogan said as part of an update on the case last May.
Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market rallied modestly on Tuesday, with bitcoin up around 2.6% at $43,822 and ether up 1% at $3,105, according to CoinMarketCap.