Breaking: SEC Drops Appeal Against Ripple, XRP Price Surges

In a major victory for the cryptocurrency industry, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced on Wednesday that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ended its legal battle with the company. This news sent XRP’s price soaring by approximately 11.4%, reaching $2.59.

“I’m finally able to announce that this case has ended. It’s over,” Garlinghouse declared at the Digital Assets Summit in New York on March 19. The announcement marks the end of a nearly four-year legal struggle that began in December 2020 when the SEC sued Ripple for allegedly selling XRP as an unregistered security.

This is it – 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.

The future is bright. Let’s build. pic.twitter.com/7WsD0C92Cm

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) March 19, 2025

A Long-Fought Battle Comes to a Close

The legal fight between Ripple and the SEC has been one of the most closely watched cases in the crypto industry. In July 2023, Ripple scored a partial victory when U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ruled that XRP sales on exchanges to retail investors did not violate securities laws.

However, the judge also determined that direct sales to institutional investors were considered unregistered securities offerings.

Last August, the court ordered Ripple to pay a $125 million fine, much less than the $2 billion penalty the SEC had sought. The SEC appealed the decision in October 2023, claiming the district court’s ruling conflicted with “decades of Supreme Court precedent and securities laws.”

Garlinghouse expressed frustration with the lengthy battle, stating:

“The system just feels broken. That we had to fight this fight for the industry, and you had an SEC attacking the industry, particularly the Ripple case. There were no victims; there was no investor loss. They were just not acting in good faith.”

Broader Implications for Crypto Regulation

The SEC’s decision to drop its appeal against Ripple comes amid a significant shift in the regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies under the Trump administration. Since January, the SEC has:

• Ended its enforcement case against Coinbase
• Closed investigations into Robinhood’s crypto unit, Uniswap, Gemini, and Consensys
• Scaled back its crypto enforcement unit
• Declared meme coins are not securities
• Created a new crypto task force focused on defining the security status of digital assets

This regulatory pivot appears to be reversing much of what cryptocurrency supporters viewed as hostile policies from the previous administration. The SEC, now under acting chair Mark Uyeda, has taken a notably different approach to crypto regulation than former chair Gary Gensler.

Market Reaction and Future Outlook for Ripple

The positive news triggered immediate market action. Chicago-based exchange Bitnomial announced it would launch the first-ever CFTC-regulated XRP futures product on Thursday, March 20.

The company had previously sued the SEC over jurisdictional issues regarding its XRP futures product but has now voluntarily dismissed its case.

XRP has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the post-election crypto rally, gaining more than 390% since Trump’s victory and up 19% year-to-date. As the native token of the open-source XRP Ledger, XRP is used by Ripple for its cross-border payments business, which conducts about 95% of its operations outside the United States.

With this legal cloud lifted, Ripple can now focus fully on expanding its business operations and partnerships. Meanwhile, the crypto industry at large watches with interest as the SEC’s new crypto task force begins its work with a roundtable series on defining the security status of digital assets.