TL;DR
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Ripple only scored a partial win in its case against the SEC, and now the Commission wants $2B in fines, before it goes after the Ethereum Foundation.
Full Story
In the words of your parents that time your dad got a new job out of state, and you had to move away from all of your friends:
“You’re going start hearing rumors, so we might as well tell you now…”
While, yes — Ripple scored a partial win in its case against the SEC, who claimed the company was selling unregistered securities (aka: ‘illegal investment products’)…
It wasn’t a case-closing win.
The judge ruled that the ‘programatic sale’ of XRP, didn’t constitute the sale of unregistered securities.
(I.e. Selling the XRP token on crypto exchanges, like Coinbase, wasn’t illegal).
Buuuut, the private sale of XRP tokens to institutional investors, did tick the ‘unregistered security’ box.
…and now the SEC wants its pound of flesh.
The Commission went as far as upping its initial 2019 request, which asked for $1.7B in damages, and pushed that figure up to a nice round $2B.
Good news:
From what we can tell, this shouldn’t negatively affect the broader crypto industry — the public sale of crypto tokens is still protected by law in the US.
Bad news is:
If a crypto project has ever made private sales of its token (which many have) — the SEC will use its new-found legal precedent to start collecting fines.
(Like it’s rumored they just did with the Ethereum Foundation).
