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The court in Ripple may have a unique opportunity to fill a regulatory vacuum and provide needed guidance to cryptocurrency network developers about how to launch digital currencies without triggering the securities laws.  The decision in the Ripple case may indeed make waves throughout digital asset markets.

Emboldened by recent wins in its ongoing legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ripple has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit entirely. The SEC sued Ripple late last year, alleging that it sold XRP tokens as unregistered securities.

Ripple is proposing a major XRP ledger upgrade that the company says could unleash decentralized finance (DeFi) and smart contracts across the broader XRP ecosystem without decreasing XRPL's efficiency. Ripple plans to accomplish this through the use of federated sidechains, according David Schwartz, the company's chief technology officer.

Ripple Labs has been granted access to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents "expressing the agency's interpretation or views" on the subject of crypto assets. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn granted the defendants' motion "in large part," determining that SEC minutes or memos concerning crypto are likely discoverable. Netburn asserted staff-to-staff email communications do not need to be produced. Netburn also allowed for the SEC and Ripple to raise disputes with the ruling.

XRP has continued to soar after Ripple's motion was granted to keep the financial records of CEO Brad Garlinghouse and his predecessor Chris Larsen private from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against the firm. The case hinges on the classification of XRP as a security (i.e. a financial asset from which the investor intends to profit), as opposed to a currency or medium of exchange. By failing to file a securities registration statement or seek special exemption, the SEC is accusing Ripple of violating multiple sections of the Securities Act of 1933. Earlier in the week, Ripple had won another skirmish when it was granted permission to get access to the SEC's documents related to its exemption of Bitcoin and Ethereum from being given "security" status.

Ripple introduced a detailed response that addressed allegations surrounding the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit filed against the firm in December. It states that there is no significant differences between XRP's function and that of Bitcoin and Ethereum. But, while the SEC recognized the two most popular digital currencies as non-securities, the agency turned around and said the opposite was true for its own token. Ripple has also filed a Freedom of Information request with the SEC, asking the agency to explain why it said ETH was born a security, but eventually evolved into a non-security.

" The egregious lawsuit by the SEC against Ripple has ignited outrage in the cryptocurrency community and a counter lawsuit, putting the SEC itself on trial. A Ripple Test could create the humility the SEC needs to determine first whether it is in the right to pursue regulatory action."

"The egregious lawsuit by the SEC against Ripple has ignited outrage in the cryptocurrency community and a counter lawsuit, putting the SEC itself on trial. A Ripple Test could create the humility the SEC needs to determine first whether it is in the right to pursue regulatory action."

Ripple has expanded, opening offices in Washington, DC - the first major blockchain company with a dedicated global regulatory team in the US capitol. But this doesn't come alone: Ripple is joining the Blockchain Association with Michelle Bond, Ripple's Global Head of Government Relations, seated at the board, and even further, Craig Phillips, former Counselor to the Secretary at the U.S. Treasury Department, has joined Ripple's Board of Directors.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed an amended complaint towards Ripple, accusing the firm of purposely misleading investors in relation to its XRP crypto-asset. The original complaint accuses Ripple Labs and its lead executives of being in violation of securities laws with $1.3 billion generated from XRP sales. It now alleges that they purposely manipulated XRP's price by increasing and decreasing XRP sales depending on market conditions.

Ripple announced a $250 million fund to provide creators with the financial, creative and technical support needed to explore and craft premium non-fungible token (NFT) and other tokenization projects on the XRP Ledger. To that end, the company has partnered with creative agency VSA Partners and NFT marketplaces mintNFT and Mintable.

"The main reasoning [for the split decision] was that institutional investors were more likely to be aware of XRP's securities-like traits when being pitched by Ripple, but so-called programmatic investors - those who buy XRP directly on a crypto exchange, like retail traders - weren't as clued-in. But extrapolating the Ripple decision as a positive for the rest of the crypto market isn't so simple. For starters, the decision was based on how well retail investors understood crypto years ago, during a period that ended in 2020."

US District Judge Analisa Torres has rejected the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC's) bid to appeal its loss against Ripple. The judge had previously ruled in July that while Ripple violated federal securities laws in selling XRP to institutional investors directly, it had not done so by making XRP available to retail customers through programmatic sales to exchanges. Torres said that the SEC's appeal had failed to meet its burden under the law to show that there were controlling questions of law or that there are substantial grounds for differences of opinion. The judge set an April 2024 trial date for other issues that still need resolution.

Ripple has enhanced its CBDC Platform launched in March 2022, that is based on the private ledger private version of the public, open-source XRP Ledger. The enhancements enable issuers to manage the full life cycle of their fiat based digital currency, from minting and distribution to redemption and destruction, taking advantage of the XRP Ledger's built-in multi-signing capabilities. It's billed as a "full stack" platform in that it manages the full CBDC lifecycle, including the provision of end-user wallets. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230518005115/en/Ripple-Launches-CBDC-Platform-for-the-Development-of-CBDCs-and-Stablecoins

"In the ongoing legal case between the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Labs, Inc., the latest document filed in court brings a new direction to the procedural conduct of the case. Judge Analisa Torres, presiding over the case in the Southern District of New York, has recently issued an order granting the parties until November 9, 2023, to jointly propose a briefing schedule concerning the appropriate remedies against Ripple concerning its alleged section 5 violations in institutional sales of XRP."

The National Bank of Georgia (NBG) has selected Ripple Labs as its technology partner for developing digital lari (GEL), its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project. The pilot will experiment with Ripple's CBDC technology and evaluate the practical use cases to gauge potential benefits for the public sector, businesses and retail users. The NBG made the decision following a competition process, which consisted of two phases: submission of a Project Execution Plan (PEP) by nine shortlisted candidates in the first phase, and demonstration of their technology solutions in the second. https://nbg.gov.ge/en/media/news/ripple-the-flagship-international-company-becomes-the-technology-partner-for-the-digital

In its recently filed annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission MoneyGram reports $11.3 million in revenue as a result of its Ripple partnership. Ripple Labs pays the remissions company as an incentive to use RippleNet in its operations.

Ripple is piloting a private version of the public, open-source XRP Ledger that provides Central Banks a secure, controlled and flexible solution for the issuance and management of digital currencies. Moving money on the CBDC Private Ledger will be cost-effective, reliable and close to instantaneous. Transactions can also happen at volumes required by Central Banks. The CBDC Private Ledger will handle tens of thousands of transactions per second (TPS) initially with the potential to scale to hundreds of thousands TPSs over time.

Ripple has become the first major blockchain company with a dedicated global regulatory team in the US capital. Ripple also joined the Blockchain Association, and Craig Phillips, former Counselor to the Secretary at the U.S. Treasury Department, has joined Ripple's Board of Directors.

SBI Ripple Asia is launching a store settlement service using the consumer-focused XRP-powered payments app MoneyTap, jointly developed by SBI and Ripple. MoneyTap implements Ripple's blockchain solution xCurrent to enable near-instant domestic bank-to-bank remittance services.