Of course, crypto market is booming right now but SEC can still claim a small but important victory.
SEC is trying to catch up with the times but in some cases it does it clumsily, harming investors, while in other cases it loses the battle (almost) completely. On Thursday, July 13th, Ripple Labs Inc has been declared not guilty of violating federal securities law when it sold its XRP token on public exchanges. This ruling is seen as a significant legal triumph for the cryptocurrency industry and has caused the value of XRP to surge.
This ruling marks the first victory for a cryptocurrency company in a case against SEC, although the SEC did achieve a partial victory as well. While this decision is specific to the circumstances of this particular case, it is likely to provide support for other crypto firms engaged in legal battles with the SEC regarding the regulatory authority over their products. An SEC spokesperson expressed satisfaction with part of the ruling, where the judge concluded that Ripple violated federal securities law by directly selling XRP to “sophisticated investors” i.e. premium, experienced investors who, on principle, engage in organized, institutional markets.
This means cryptos have not become a completely integrated part of the institutional markets yet but they are on their way.