Cryptocurrency News: And we kicked off this week with the news that every XRP fanatic has been waiting for. After more than two years of legal wrangling, Ripple has won a (partial) victory in a lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In a historic victory, New York Judge Annalisa Torres ruled that the XRP token is not a security, but only in connection with automated sales on digital asset exchanges.
Ripple wins. for now.
However, the federal judge also partially ruled in favor of the SEC by stating that XRP is a security when sold to institutional investors, because it met the conditions outlined in the Howey Test.
The news saw the price of XRP nearly double, rising to $0.93 before retreating to $0.78 by press time. The saga has been going on since December 2020 when the SEC sued Ripple and its two CEOs, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen, alleging that the company was offering an unregistered XRP security.
But the SEC’s response has been met with derision from the cryptocurrency community. The authority said in a statement:
“We are pleased that the court found that XRP tokens were offered and sold by Ripple as investment contracts in violation of securities laws in certain circumstances.”
Paradigm Chief Legal Officer Katie Pepper claimed that the statement had “the sentiments of a young hacker campaign running on bad facts, versus a powerful government agency expected to tell the truth.”
While XRP has largely emerged victorious in the lawsuit, there are some caveats. The ruling stated that Ripple’s institutional sale of XRP constituted an unregistered offer and sale of investment contracts.
As such, Section 5 of the Securities Exchange Act has been violated. Some see the case as a partial victory for Ripple, and there may be more legal challenges ahead for the company.
Overall, it was a strong showing for Ripple, and both Coinbase and Kraken have reintroduced XRP after the ruling.
Our writer Barry Rahme says the news marks a defining moment as Ripple’s ability to back the legality of its XRP sales against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) furthers the resilience of the cryptocurrency market.
So what exactly is the Howey test? Click here to learn more.
Crypto – speaking socially
Release the Kraken!
In other SEC-related news, Kraken and Bitstamp have both indirectly benefited from Coinbase and Binance’s troubles. US cryptocurrency trading volumes on Kraken grew to 29%, while Bitstamp, another international exchange with a US presence, saw its volume increase from US volumes to 9%.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently filed lawsuits against Coinbase and Binance for offering unregistered securities and violating business registration requirements. As a result, Coinbase’s share of cryptocurrency trading volumes in the US fell from 62% in January to 51% by June 18.
Binance.US, the US arm of the global exchange, has seen its market share shrink to around 1.15% since March. Meanwhile, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao recently denied allegations that Binance is losing executives en masse following lawsuits. After failing to obtain a license from Dutch regulators, the exchange recently offloaded its Dutch clients to a competitor.
Cryptocurrency news
Terminate the scammer
In other Kraken news, a crypto call center scam was taken down after the exchange sought help from Crypto YouTuber Kitboga to expose the scam. in video Posting on his YouTube channel, Kitboga details how he teamed up with a cryptocurrency exchange to catch scammers and corrupt their operations.
The premise of the attack was very simple. The popup is designed to look like a real security alert. But instead of warning users that there was a danger on their computers, it told them to call a fake hotline. On the other hand, scammers posing as cybersecurity experts have manipulated callers into making payments, handing over login credentials, or even taking control of their devices.
Before calling the fraud call center, Kraken helped Kitboga create a fake account that appeared to hackers as if it contained a large amount of Bitcoin. Under the pretense that they were working to protect his coins, the scammers asked their victim to initiate a withdrawal request that would drain the account of all its funds.
However, Sting Kraken has been collecting data from multiple crypto wallets used by call center operators. This kind of information is extremely useful in the battle against cryptocrime. Kraken managed to share wallet addresses with other exchange operators to freeze assets, shutting down the network on the perpetrator’s cryptocurrency laundering operation.
Another person fought sand
This week we said goodbye to DeFi protocol Algofi, another victim of the crypto winter. The project contributed more than 50% of Algorand’s total value locked (TVL). underground announce Close its platform and put it in withdrawal mode only.
The team wrote on Twitter:
“Going forward, we can no longer provide the support necessary to maintain protocol at the high standards that we believe the community deserves.”
The decision has left the community prognosis on ALGO’s future as it will eventually be divested of more than 50% of TVL.
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