In a recent development, Coinbase filed an amicus brief in the SEC v. XRP litigation supporting Ripple. The lawsuit, which has been pending for 18 months, will soon reach a decision.
The Crypto Council for Innovation and Valhil Capital, who have stood up in support of Ripple, have joined Coinbase in filing an Amicus Curie. Furthermore, John E. Deaton, one of the original Amicus Curie in the endgame, has asked Judge Torres for permission to submit his arguments in support of Ripple.
On Twitter, Deaton’s Crypto Law published a thread about the submitted briefs:
excerpt from @JohnEDeaton1’s proposed amicus brief for the # XRPHolders submitted today”The @SECGov requests this Court to validate its terse and analytically sloppy assertion that @Ripple has engaged in the functional equivalent of a 9-year-long, on-going, 24/7 ICO,” it states in court documents. (1/8)—CryptoLaw (@CryptoLawUS), October 31, 2022.
In their papers, Coinbase underlined that while other digital currencies with roughly identical goods or services have not been subjected to any enforcement attention, Ripple and other digital currencies have come under intense investigation.
Additionally, as mentioned by Coinbase in its filings,
Due to the lack of SEC rulemaking for the cryptocurrency market, it will frequently be difficult to determine whether the SEC gave reasonable notice before taking enforcement action against sales of one of the hundreds of unique digital assets, making it particularly unsuitable for summary judgement.
In order to explain their decision to participate in this lawsuit as friends of the court, Valhil Capital outlined certain crucial reasons. According to the Valhil officials, using XRP appears to be 57,000 times more energy efficient than using Bitcoin.
Additionally, XRP transactions take far less time and cost a lot less money than transactions with other digital currencies.
The SEC is attempting to impose regulatory criteria for registration, disclosure, and other issues that are not appropriate for virtual currencies like XRP, claims the Crypto Council for Innovation. By doing this, the SEC faces the risk of extending its power to assets that might not necessarily be covered by its present set of rules or fall under its purview as a securities regulator.
While the rest of the industry is quite supportive of Ripple, the SEC does not see any relief in sight. In his tweets, James K. Filan, a cryptocurrency lawyer, made light-hearted remarks about a future time when the SEC would need more time and pages to respond to all of these amicus briefs.
The Amicus Curiae filed by Coinbase to support Ripple in the SEC lawsuit originally appeared on Coin Edition.
