Ripple’s CEO posted on X that the SEC was dropping its appeal against the company, but it may not get the clean victory that it is promoting.
The SEC would not confirm that the appeal will be dropped
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Posted March 19, 2025 at 11:35 am EST.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is dropping its appeal against Ripple Labs, according to a Wednesday morning X post from CEO Brad Garlinghouse. The legal battle, which began in December 2020 during Trump’s first term, was launched under former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. It became a landmark case regarding how digital assets align with U.S. securities laws.
“This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. The SEC will drop its appeal – a resounding victory for Ripple, for crypto, every way you look at it,” said Garlinghouse on X. “The future is bright. Let’s build.”
The SEC specifically charged Ripple Labs with selling XRP as an unregistered security to both institutional and retail investors, saying that Ripple Labs had raised $1.3 billion from the offerings. In a 2023 ruling, a U.S. federal judge from the Southern District of New York, Analisa Torres split the baby, ruling that the $728 million worth of sales to institutions was against the law but that programmatic sales to retail investors via third party exchanges was legal.
Since then the SEC and Ripple Labs have been in negotiations over a fine related to the sales to institutional investors. In August 2024, Judge Torres ultimately fined Ripple Labs $125,035,150 for the violations. Because the fine was only 6% of the $2 billion fine that the SEC was requesting in the case, Ripple celebrated the win as a success. However, the SEC appealed the ruling that October, with a spokesperson telling CoinDesk that the agency felt the federal judge in New York’s decision “conflicts with decades of Supreme Court precedent and securities laws.”
Still to be decided is the fate of this $125 million fine, as multiple legal experts tell Unchained that the SEC dropping its appeal does not automatically eliminate the penalty. A source familiar with Ripple said that the company would continue with its appeal against the SEC over the $125 million fine.
Another Win for Crypto
This news is the latest example of the SEC, under acting Chairman Mark Uyeda dropping more than a dozen lawsuits against crypto companies since Trump’s inauguration, most notably its case against Coinbase for failing to register as a securities exchange.
It also comes after Ripple donated tens of millions of dollars to Donald Trump and a political action committee called Fairshake that spent over $130 million in the last election cycle to create a pro-crypto Congress. A White House spokesperson said that there was no relationship between Ripple’s donations to Trump and the SEC dropping its appeal. “This is an outlandish accusation,” they said, referring Unchained to the SEC.
A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment in response to a request to confirm Garlinghouse’s announcement, whether Ripple’s donations had any impact on the commission’s decision, or if the $125 million fine would still be paid.
