[TacticalCoder]

In case anyone else is confused by the wording:

> A federal judge imposed a $125 million fine on Ripple after finding last year that its institutional sales of XRP violated federal securities laws.

OK so it violated the SEC rules for the institutional sales.

> The judge reiterated her view that Ripple's programmatic sales of XRP to retail clients through exchanges did not violate federal securities laws.

But it did not violate the SEC rules for the sales to retail.

I was confused at first. As someone else wrote in the thread: it's poorly worded.

[intuitionist]

It’s doubly confusing because the decision protects the weak, helpless institutional investor while leaving the ruthless sharks that are retail clients to fend for themselves.

[yieldcrv]

There is a whole world of securities law that’s hidden behind client attorney privilege that each client uses to protect themselves from the SEC (and DOJ), but basically nothing has been surprising about how the SEC has fumbled in the crypto cases or in what the courts have ruled

and of people familiar with this dimension of yet unchallenged securities case law, this has been one of the criticisms of the SEC:

Nothing the SEC does can accomplish investor protection in the crypto markets.

Nothing the SEC does can accomplish the mission Congress set for it, in the crypto markets.

There are ways to leverage blockchain transparency for real time disclosures far beyond what is seen in the stock market, and investors already have choices in sticking with offerings that leverage onchain transparency better. A concept of government can help standardize this approach to help capital formation.

SEC enforcement on the teams and exchanges will only harm investors in liquidity and price discovery. I would say that the SEC making itself known has improved the quality of crypto offerings, but there is still a far better approach possible.

[trogdor]

> There is a whole world of securities law that’s hidden behind client attorney privilege that each client uses to protect themselves from the SEC (and DOJ)

What, specifically, are you referring to?

[yieldcrv]

The only point is that the SEC hasn’t done anything unpredictable in which offerings they’ve chosen to go after, despite calling all cryptos securities, nothing surprising about how judges have ruled when taken to trial

It’s based primarily on what the issuers have said

[telotortium]

Also

> The $125.035 million fine is well below the $1 billion in disgorgement and prejudgment interest and $900 million in civil penalties the SEC sought.

[seanhunter]

I don't think you're the only person confused by this ruling. Particularly it seems very strange for something to be ok to sell to retail but not to institutions. The rules on what institutions can buy are generally far broader than retail because of the SEC's "investor protection" mandate.