Ripple, Ripple, Ripple!
Abraham George Crypto Musings
Even though I anticipated the settlement regarding the Ripple vs SEC by the end of September, it did not take place. However, that does not change anything about a final Ripple victory.
To start with SEC did not have a case to sue Ripple but they still did it and tried to prove many things against Ripple which were all turned down by the courts. While the case against Ripple is still a mystery, talks are surfacing that it was done mainly to delay the progression of Ripple or even kill it.
Finally, they had to comply with releasing about 63 emails relating to the internal messages that Bill Hinman the commissioner of finance at SEC exchanged regarding the Ethereum free pass speech that he made at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit in June 2018 stating that Ether (ETH) is not a security.
Despite repeated requests from Judge Sarah Netburn to produce the documents, the SEC ignored that and appealed to senior Judge Torres to not comply with judge Netburn’s requests. Judge Torres had no hesitation in turning down the SEC request and ordering them to comply with what judge Netburn had asked them to do.
This puts the SEC in a lot of pickle as the time for settlement has probably passed and the matter should go into summary judgment within three months. Should the SEC lose, they have everything to lose as the SEC may not be able to regulate any cryptos in the future. The ruling that will follow will have an impact on all other regulatory bodies as well.
Meanwhile, CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam has stated most of the cryptos including Bitcoin and Ethereum are commodities and has written to Congress requesting authorization to regulate them under the CFTC umbrella. Also newly appointed (Apr 2022) Commissioner Caroline Pham by President Biden to the CFTC has been making very crypto-friendly statements as opposed to Gary Gensler’s style of rule by enforcement.
She even made a visit to Ripple's office to meet with CEO Brad Garlinghouse. She was last seen at the Bank of England for a meeting last week. The BOE is a client of Ripple since 2017 and is probably the most open major central bank that Ripple is working with. Am I speculating something? You bet I am. I think many pieces are falling into place in favor of Ripple. There are many reports saying that Ripple is working with the Reserve Bank of India on a private ledger. If that is true it can also apply to all other BRICS countries.
While all this is going on Fox reporter Eleanor Terrett has obtained Bill Hinman’s appointment diary dating back to the days of the Ethereum free pass speech. It clearly shows his appointments with Etherium officials and the ConsenSys team. It is surprising how Eleanor got hold of Hinman’s schedules but I have the feeling the SEC is finally throwing Hinman under the bus. If I was Hinman, I will be a very worried man.
Eleanor Terrett said, “The SEC continues to deliberately foster uncertainty rather than provide any guidance, which is why we are vigorously defending this case on behalf of the entire crypto industry.” Finally, when the verdict is passed it will be a big victory for the crypto industry.
Many lawyers have weighed in on the recent developments with SEC and none of them see anything other than a Ripple victory but James K Filan pointed out that the SEC has a number of procedural cards, they can play to try to further delay complying with the order to produce the Hinman documents.
When it comes to payments and settlements I don’t think there is any crypto out there to match the efficiency of XRP. Without going into much explanation, the stand-out features of XRP are as follows: 1) very fast 2) very low-cost 3) very scalable 4) extremely stable 5) very sustainable 6) ubiquitously distributed.
This is one of the very low-hanging fruits that are available in the most liquid tradable space and a long-term investment. My holding period on this asset will be nothing less than 5 to 10 years. This is no financial advice. Finally, watch this fast-paced two minutes video on Ripple and it should blow your mind.
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Abraham George is a seasoned investment manager with more than 40 years of experience in trading & investment and multi-billion dollar portfolio management spanning diverse environments like banks (HSBC, ADCB), sovereign wealth fund (ADIA), a royal family office, and a hedge fund.