[WinstonSmith84]

"partial" win!? It's hard to see what would be a "win" otherwise... It's going to have also larger implications - the SEC somehow manages to lose that one, it was hard to imagine or predict. If not even XRP is a security, there is truly no other coins which could be a security. Hate it or love it, but the SEC is simply going to lose all their other lawsuits

EDIT: oh funny ... Reuters edited their title and removed "partial" :-)

[JeremyNT]

> "partial" win!? It's hard to see what would be a "win" otherwise... It's going to have also larger implications - the SEC somehow manages to lose that one, it was hard to imagine or predict. If not even XRP is a security, there is truly no other coins which could be a security.

This is explained in the article. It was good day for this crypto scam, but it wasn't all good news for them:

> The ruling was also a partial victory for the SEC. The judge held that Ripple violated federal securities law by selling XRP directly to sophisticated investors, and that a trial should be held over its executives' role in those sales.

Also:

> Hate it or love it, but the SEC is simply going to lose all their other lawsuits

Quite a bold statement there, based on a single ruling...

[ChainOfFools]

> Quite a bold statement there, based on a single ruling...

And a ruling on ripple, which from architectural standpoint is rather stretching the bounds of what is typically thought of as a cryptocurrency -it isnt mined or staked and the blockchain is even more of a pretend decentralization gimmick than the rest of the tokens out there. it's much more like corporate scrip controlled by a handful of bank-owned validator supernodes. In terms of ownership structure it's what Bitcoin would drift into over time if the lightning network actually becomes the predominant means of interacting with it.

[linuxftw]

Only appellate courts and higher set precedent. This is one ruling by one judge, means nothing for other cases.

[dcolkitt]

Should be noted this decision came from an Obama appointee judge in a fairly liberal district (SDNY). The Second Circuit is half Federalist Society judges, and six out of the nine SCOTUS justices have been on a consistent battle to roll back the power of the regulatory agencies. Pretty hard to see how the case becomes more favorable for the SEC on appeal.

[gjsman-1000]

Well, that's just fantastic for the SEC in their newly-launched battle against Coinbase. Good luck with that, Gensler.

[granzymes]

Appellate courts set binding precedent, but district courts routinely look to eachother for guidance on how to rule on questions where there is no circuit/SCOTUS ruling.

Similarly, a judge in one circuit may look to the decision of a different circuit court when their own circuit has yet to rule on an issue.

[yieldcrv]

The SEC would be dumb as hell to appeal this ruling, 2nd circuit could rule in the SEC’s favor but this Supreme Court?

I double dare the SEC to appeal

The commission might not exist the very next day and that would be hilarious, they’ll take it back to the New Deal itself and wonder why the SEC survived when so many other New Deal programs got overturned

[choppaface]

> Torres found the company's $728.9 million of XRP sales to hedge funds and other sophisticated buyers amounted to unregistered sales of securities

It would probably have been a bigger win for Ripple had they gotten out of that one.

[yieldcrv]

unregistered sales of securities aren’t violations of the securities act when relying on an exemption from registration, to accredited and qualified investors…

just because they might not have filed a Reg D notice for their SAFE doesnt mean the whole transaction is invalid

[choppaface]

But the key is the trial goes on and if not this court then some other will get to see that the buyers of XRP are buying shares of Ripple i.e. securities.

[yyyk]

If this stands it clears Ripple, but not necessarily the exchanges (footnote 16 in page 23). If SEC gets that one, that would be enough of a win for them - without the offramps, these coins wouldn't survive.

[petesergeant]

> If not even XRP is a security

Forgive me, I know little about crypto, and am bearish on it, but:

My understanding is that Ripple was very much meant to be a currency/commodity, unambiguously, where most other crypto backed by whitepapers were meant to be securities on the basis that they were meant to back some hare-brained scheme or have some utility beyond simply being a means of transfer. If I'm right about that, then surely Ripple has one of the strongest arguments for not being a security?

[eric_cc]

> Forgive me, I know little about crypto, and am bearish on it

Forgive me, how can you form a bearish opinion on something you know very little about?

[LikesPwsh]

It's not possible to sustain a magic money box where everyone can put money in and get more out.

Many people get that far in their thinking, realise cryptocurrency is a bad investment, and leave it there.

[eric_cc]

Bitcoin IS money. Record high numbers of people are onboarding to bitcoin and not coming back to fiat. It’s just as much an “investment” as the US dollar is.

[wonderwonder]

The S&P 500 would argue otherwise

[unmole]

Right, 500 of the largest public companies in the largest economy, is equivalent to a magic money box. It's not like they collectively have hundreds of billions in revenue or anything.

[ashwagary]

>The S&P 500 would argue otherwise

As a matter of fact, every scarce asset with steady demand would argue otherwise.