Key Takeaways

• Ripple CTO reflects on previous SEC troubles.
• Schwartz compares Ripple’s previous litigation with Cardano’s, Solana’s, and Polygon’s.
• The CTO sees movement in the US government against the SEC’s tight control.

Ripple shook the crypto market when the company landed a partial win against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a lawsuit where the regulating body claimed Ripple traded illegally in unregistered securities, in the form of XRP.

US District Judge Analisa Torres ruled in favor of the company, practically rendering XRP a non-security.

However, litigation between the institution and the regulating body lasted over two years. In the meantime, several popular exchanges delisted XRP, including US-based Coinbase.

Ripple’s CTO had a conversation with Cointelegraph, reflecting on the impact of the SEC’s tight control on tokens such as XRP.

SEC Cost Ripple A Lot Of Business

David Schwartz, Ripple’s Chief Technology Office (CTO), talked to Cointelegraph during the company’s annual Apex developer conference hosted in Amsterdam. 

Reflecting on what happened during the SEC litigation with Ripple, Schwarts talked about how litigation resulted in Ripple/XRP losing many business deals.

However, Schwartz pointed out that XRP community saw the biggest loss. The token’s ecosystem support was damaged by sanctions from a number of popular exchanges.

“The ruling that we’ve had so far was sufficient to allow exchanges to relist XRP, and it was big, I think, for the entire ecosystem,” said Schwartz.

A Change Of Attitude

“I feel bad that I have to tell people that the United States is probably not where they want to be, but the tide is turning. You know, the ruling in our suit that basically said that XRP is not inherently a security, that’s huge,” Schwartz told Cointelegraph.

His claim is evident in examples such as Andreessen Horowitz who are looking into expanding more into the UK market, following the predictions set by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse who claimed an imminent “crypto exodus”.

However, Schwartz believes that U.S. judges are starting to scrutinize cases brought forward by the SEC a lot more. On top of that, companies with the resources are standing up to the SEC, to benefit the entire industry.

“They’re starting to get huge pushback from Coinbase and pushback on the ETFs. Hopefully, that will prompt some changes at the legislature level, hopefully positive ones.”

To support the argument, there have been reports of representatives in the government who currently attempt to reformat the SEC, a process which would include seeing Gary Gensler removed from the commission’s leadership.

Schwartz did not immediately respond to a request for commentary