The SEC Gains Time to Handle Documents to Ripple

The Ripple Labs Inc. lawsuit has been over a year right now, and there is a probability that it’s in its last phase.

On January 13, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to handle documents that might help with the Ripple vs SEC case. Now Judge Sarah Netburn granted SEC’s request for an extension of time until February 17.

Those documents could be a game-changer because it includes a speech that William Hinman, former director of Corporation Finance of the SEC, made back in June 2018, claiming neither Bitcoin (BTC) nor Ether (ETH), from his point of view, were securities.

SEC vs Ripple Highlights

On December 22, 2020, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executives, co-founder Christian Larsen and CEO Bradley Garlinghouse, claiming that they had sold over $1.3 billion through XRP cryptocurrency alleged to be an unregistered security.

One week after the SEC lawsuit, many exchanges started to stop or suspend XRP trading because of what was going on around the XRP ecosystem, filed Coinbase.

In March 2021, Garlinghouse and Larsen sent a letter to Judge Sarah Netburn to dismiss the Ripple vs SEC lawsuit because of “fair notice and due process.” Netburn told the SEC that XRP differs from Bitcoin and Ether a few days later because of its utility.

After Judge Netburn’s response, Ripple started asking for Bitcoin and Ether documents to help them with the case. In November 2021, Brad Garlinghouse said that Ripple saw “good progress” and that the case could end by 2022.

Two weeks ago, Jeremy Hogan, a blockchain-crypto lawyer, who has been following the case since the beginning, says the case could end by April or, in its worst-case scenario, by the summer of this year.

Has the Lawsuit Affected XRP Price?

XRP price was trading around $0.44 before the SEC announcement. The price was down 52% a week later, trading at $0.21. As time passed, the XRP price was less correlated about the case ecosystem and reached a 2021 price top in April of $1.83, according to CoinMarketCap.

The Ripple-related cryptocurrency is still down 82% from its previous all-time high of $3.37 in January 2018. XRP is the eighth biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, trading at $0.59 and $59.90 billion of market cap.

The majority of the crypto community has been aware of the Ripple vs SEC case because the outcome if SEC wins could hurt not only XRP but also other cryptocurrencies and crypto in general.

As of right now, there is a short-term bearish sentiment on the crypto market, but if Ripple wins the case in the future and the market turns bullish again, could this be the catalyst to send XRP to a new all-time high?