{"id":401360,"date":"2025-08-09T05:31:55","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T00:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/sec-drops-ripple-appeal-signaling-shift-in-crypto-regulation-but-uncertainty-remains-crypto-news\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T05:42:39","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T00:12:39","slug":"sec-drops-ripple-appeal-signaling-shift-in-crypto-regulation-but-uncertainty-remains-crypto-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/sec-drops-ripple-appeal-signaling-shift-in-crypto-regulation-but-uncertainty-remains-crypto-news\/","title":{"rendered":"SEC Drops Ripple Appeal Signaling Shift in Crypto Regulation \u2014 But Uncertainty Remains &#8211; Crypto News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The SEC\u2019s decision to end its legal battle with Ripple Labs closes a tumultuous chapter but leaves regulatory uncertainty looming.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/thedefiant.io\/news\/regulation\/sec-ripple-end-five-year-xrp-lawsuit-joint-appeal-dismissal-28d1a73c\" target=\"__blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer \">The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple jointly dropping their appeals <\/a>shows a big shift in how U.S. regulators handle crypto from now on. Experts say it signals that the SEC is moving away from tough enforcement and toward clearer rules \u2013 but they warn the overall crypto landscape is still uncertain.<\/p>\n<p>The joint dismissal ends a five-year legal battle that started in 2020, when the SEC sued Ripple for selling <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/thedefiant.io\/prices\/ripple\" target=\"__blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer \">XRP<\/a>, the native token of Ripple&#8217;s payment network, as unregistered securities. In August 2024, Ripple was fined $125 million, far less than the $2 billion the SEC sought \u2013 a ruling the SEC appealed in October.<\/p>\n<p>Now that the legal battle is officially over, experts are saying a major shift is underway. Charley Cooper, COO at Ava Labs and former senior official at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), called the end of the case \u201cthe death knell of the SEC\u2019s attempt to regulate crypto through enforcement actions.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Cooper explained that without clear rules set by the SEC \u2013 or, ideally, by Congress \u2013 the SEC spent the past several years filing lawsuits to argue that cryptocurrencies are securities, hoping the courts would agree and allow them to enforce regulations that way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe SEC under Atkins\u2019 leadership now realizes that approach is flawed and the only appropriate law enforcement action is clear guidance from Congress and then rule making from the SEC,\u201d Cooper said, referring to SEC chair Paul Atkins. \u201cPrior to this, market participants like Ripple were held to account for laws not written for them but for securities long before crypto.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"mb-4\">\n<div>\n<article class=\"yt-lite lyt-activated\" data-title=\"Revisiting Ripple: New Stablecoin, Airdrops, Network Attacks, and The SEC Case\" style=\"background-image:url(https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/8zh0UAlZ2Ag\/hqdefault.jpg);--aspect-ratio:56.25%\"><button type=\"button\" class=\"lty-playbtn\" aria-label=\"Watch Revisiting Ripple: New Stablecoin, Airdrops, Network Attacks, and The SEC Case\"\/><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"\" title=\"Revisiting Ripple: New Stablecoin, Airdrops, Network Attacks, and The SEC Case\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/8zh0UAlZ2Ag?mute=1&#038;enablejsapi=1\"><\/iframe><\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Grey Area<\/h2>\n<p>As far back as 2019, the SEC has <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/vocal\" target=\"__blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer \">been vocal<\/a> that Bitcoin is not considered a security, citing the landmark SEC v. Howey case. While this helped define one boundary for regulation, many other cryptocurrencies, including XRP, remained in a legal gray area for years. <\/p>\n<p>Cooper said the SEC\u2019s latest decision signals a more cooperative era, where regulators and the crypto industry are working together to create clear rules for digital assets, rather than \u201ctrying to jam crypto into a box of pre-existing set of asset classes that have existed for decades, if not hundreds of years.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>\u201cA regulatory minefield\u201d<\/h2>\n<p>Despite the legal victory, not everyone is convinced that Ripple will immediately benefit or that the U.S. market will become crypto-friendly overnight.<\/p>\n<p>Doug Colkitt, contributor to Fogo, said the SEC\u2019s withdrawal was more about exhaustion than vindication. \u201cThe SEC dropping its case against Ripple is less about vindication and more about exhaustion,\u201d he said. \u201cAfter nearly five years, it\u2019s clear this battle did nothing but burn time, capital, and trust on both sides.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Colkitt explained that for Ripple, the path is now open to rebuild or expand U.S. operations, \u201cbut whether they should is a different story.\u201d He added that the U.S. \u201cremains a regulatory minefield, and while this case may be closed, the broader rules of the road are still unwritten.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>For the crypto space as a whole, Colkitt said, this represents another crack in the SEC\u2019s enforcement-first approach. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf even Ripple \u2013 a company the SEC was hell-bent on making an example of\u2013 can walk away, it signals that aggressive, vague regulation isn\u2019t holding up in court,\u201d he concluded. \u201cBut let\u2019s not pretend this is some great leap forward. The real momentum is with teams building outside the U.S. or designing protocols that minimize trust assumptions and regulatory chokepoints altogether. That\u2019s where DeFi is headed, and no settlement is going to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>XRP is currently trading at $3.31, up 3% on the day and more than 38% over the past month, according to CoinGecko. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The SEC\u2019s decision to end its legal battle with Ripple Labs closes a tumultuous chapter but leaves regulatory uncertainty looming. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple jointly dropping their appeals shows a big shift in how U.S. regulators handle crypto from now on. Experts say it signals that the SEC is moving [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401361,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[274,273,272,244,266,271,268,270,269,267],"class_list":["post-401360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-de-fi","tag-crypto-finance","tag-decentralized-finance","tag-liquidity","tag-metamask","tag-pancake","tag-slippage","tag-sushiswap","tag-tronlink","tag-trust-wallet","tag-uniswap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401362,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401360\/revisions\/401362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}