Ripple & SEC letter to Judge Torres 15 February

[RobertHarpool 1,098]

24 minutes ago, panmores said:

As for your second point, of course the SEC case matters to any potential Ripple client. First off: Bradley's and Chris' reputation is tainted, without being found guilty, and the company at odds with regulators isn't a very positive signal at all even to the outside world.

The CEO is "guilty" of a crime .... 

The CEO is "guilty" of having an over due library book ... 

No potential client anywhere is going to care one iota about the latter. There is no allegation of fraud or a crime. Pointing out that "This happened under the last administration" is literally a Trump card ;-) 

 

Edited February 16 by RobertHarpool

[solid102 451]

29 minutes ago, panmores said:

Which makes the SEC case even weirder, knowing the whole team is about to be substituted - and launching the case in the very last minute with no one of the old team being around. Just shows how erratic they act.

As for your second point, of course the SEC case matters to any potential Ripple client. First off: Bradley's and Chris' reputation is tainted, without being found guilty, and the company at odds with regulators isn't a very positive signal at all even to the outside world.

Like Elon Musk reputation was tainted when the SEC sued him for trying to manipulate Tesla stock prices via twitter? 

[HAL1000 208]

If you watch the legal briefs vid then I at least feel like smiling

[RobertHarpool 1,098]

24 minutes ago, solid102 said:

Like Elon Musk reputation was tainted when the SEC sued him for trying to manipulate Tesla stock prices via twitter? 

You speak "Punch Monkey", huh? (Reference: Croods, A New Age). So does my wife. 

(If this is too obscure of a pop culture reference for ya', it's a compliment) 

Edited February 16 by RobertHarpool

[Seoulite 1,975]

1 hour ago, panmores said:

Which makes the SEC case even weirder, knowing the whole team is about to be substituted - and launching the case in the very last minute with no one of the old team being around. Just shows how erratic they act.

As the US slowly falls apart, its institutions becoming more politicised, more corrupt, and more dysfunctional. Being based in the US may in fact be a liability going forward. Ripple tried to say "Hey we are on Team USA!" forgetting that the American ruling class is not on Team USA. If Ripple were in Japan or even China the government would be behind them 100%. I think even if Ripple comes out of this case well they should consider moving the vast majority of their activity away from the sinking ship that is the American Empire.

Edited February 16 by Seoulite

[SquaryBone 851]

4 hours ago, Archbob said:

Yeah, there will be no settlement before the 22nd, and probably not for months yet.

Who could have guessed. Such surprise! Much unexpected! Very wut.  Not pointing at you here.

[Karl 408]

The SEC with transitional staff is simply unable to make an internal decision on the matter because it exceeds its competencies.

And the enforcement lawyers behave like little offended children with no sense or understanding of the matter. The SEC itself is getting more and more entangled in a guerrilla war of nomenclature instead of objectivity and legality. A nomenclature which the SEC has not yet clearly defined itself, but which expresses unfounded accusations in Wild West style, while they destroy a whole ecosystem and human lives with it.

And of course virtual currencies are also digital assets and virtual currencies are a matter of exchange objects and thereby a subset of digital assets.

Geez, what an insult to common sense:

 

Quote

[...] Defendants’ request that this Court become the first in the digital asset space to ignore this precedent is not only legally unsound, it is also factually problematic. Garlinghouse himself publicly and repeatedly disclaimed thinking about XRP as any kind of currency. E.g., Compl. ¶¶ 360-61. And though today Defendants come to court pinning the word “currency” to XRP, Ripple in 2016—not long after the 2015 settlement with the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) settlement on which Defendants now purport to rely— had its attorneys represent to the New York State Department of Financial Services that “XRP II and Ripple consider XRP a digital asset, not a currency” and that “XRP is not intended to be used as a currency.” Moreover, XRP is not legal tender in any jurisdiction, and Ripple did not sell XRP to persons who intended to use XRP as currency. [..]

... They try to pin down the word "currency" to Fiat-Money in their own lingo, while the term actually used in this context is "virtual currency", a progressive word composition. This only gives an impression of how backward the SEC is.

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money

PS: I can still remember how the SEC did the same in the early days of the Internet. The SEC is an innovation blocker and has learned nothing from its mistakes.

Edited February 16 by Karl

[princesultan 940]

Ripple may not have been 100% in the right, but the SEC looks like a complete disaster. It’s frankly embarrassing. 

[lucky 6,418]

An argument I have not seen anywhere yet: If XRP is indeed a security, what kind of "investment contract" people buying Jed's billions are getting into, since he abandonded and publicly denounced the project, and started a competitor?

Jed sales are proof the whole investment contract theory is lunatic. All the money he collects for his XRP - 22 million TODAY - is NOT going to be used to advance XRP utility. At best it is NOT going to be used to advance a competing platform.

[paym8 137]

Hey @Lucky, it looks like this space is not good for you, its putting years on ya kidda.

Edited February 16 by paym8
tag

[brianwalden 4,038]

12 minutes ago, lucky said:

An argument I have not seen anywhere yet: If XRP is indeed a security, what kind of "investment contract" people buying Jed's billions are getting into, since he abandonded and publicly denounced the project, and started a competitor?

Jed sales are proof the whole investment contract theory is lunatic. All the money he collects for his XRP - 22 million TODAY - is NOT going to be used to advance XRP utility. At best it is NOT going to be used to advance a competing platform.

You haven't seen that argument because the SEC hasn't made the argument that XRP is in and of itself a security. The exchanges have all suspended it out of an abundance of caution - that's what happens when you combine an overly litigious society with a lack of regulational clarity - but I don't think anyone who's studied the case thinks that XRP will be defined as a security. 

[3GO3D 101]

1 hour ago, lucky said:

An argument I have not seen anywhere yet: If XRP is indeed a security, what kind of "investment contract" people buying Jed's billions are getting into, since he abandonded and publicly denounced the project, and started a competitor?

Jed sales are proof the whole investment contract theory is lunatic. All the money he collects for his XRP - 22 million TODAY - is NOT going to be used to advance XRP utility. At best it is NOT going to be used to advance a competing platform.

Nice one Lucky.  If the SEC decide that XRP is and has always been a Security Investment Contract every one who has sold or traded them is Guilty of breaching the Security Laws. Is the SEC going to Sue all of us ?

 

[SquaryBone 851]

1 hour ago, lucky said:

An argument I have not seen anywhere yet: If XRP is indeed a security, what kind of "investment contract" people buying Jed's billions are getting into, since he abandonded and publicly denounced the project, and started a competitor?

Jed sales are proof the whole investment contract theory is lunatic. All the money he collects for his XRP - 22 million TODAY - is NOT going to be used to advance XRP utility. At best it is NOT going to be used to advance a competing platform.

You start talking about whether XRP is a security and then switch to how XRP is sold as an investment contract. The case is about the latter it seems. Not about whether XRP is a security.

[Karl 408]

The SEC even struggles to answer just a few straight forward w-questions:

What is a „digital asset security“?

Where can the definition of a „digital asset security“ publicly obtained from?

Who authorized the SEC to handle their self-constructed „digital asset security“?

Why is XRP different to Bitcoin and Ether?

[Julian_Williams 14,254]

14 hours ago, panmores said:

Ripple is under much more pressure, SEC doesn't care really and can drag this on.

Would be surprised if Ripple signs up more clients while this is ongoing. The 15 they mentioned probably had everything presigned already.

but XRP is not used for what was the xCurrent part of Ripplenet, which is functioning well and growing, furthermore SBI are developing the ODL part of Ripplenet in the far East.  So I think it will go on growing, at an al be it slower pace.

Edited February 16 by Julian_Williams