The SEC has filed its Opposition to the Ripple defendants’ Motion to Compel the SEC to produce documents showing whether SEC employees were permitted to trade XRP and other digital assets.

[Valhalla_Guy]

1 hour ago, HAL1000 said:

Wow - your opinion is all fair and good, my opinion is different, the SEC may have more to lose than win, if this goes to court I will be amazed, the judge will get the crayons out for the SEC, before she rules in the SEC's favour. Also keep in mind ninety-six percent of all SEC cases are settled before trial and in that sense, who's winning this case right now in almost every sense, Ripple. All the BS in the world from the SEC is showing massive and systemic corruption, unlike times gone by, the world is watching, which means the court and the legal system is under more scrutiny than it has ever been, the old days of a back page newspaper article mentioning this are gone. The world is watching and, even the old powers that be, know that this type of thing is not a vote winner.

The XRP party is about to kick off, not be buried in a SEC BS ash pile, oh and trust me, I am at least as old as you, in my opinion. This has all been in the works for a very long time and keep in mind, "The train has already left the station.... One of the few cryptocurrencies out there that has a credible and legitimate use." - Rosie Rios.

I am not an echo or a chamber, I am somebody who works at understanding this stuff at a high level, so I say GG is a pawn and there are much bigger pieces and players at play, than just the old guard and their SEC puppets. By the way Valhalla_Guy do you still hold XRP or have you got of this train?

Anybody reading this thinking I'm attacking Valhalla_Guy, I'm not, this is just two old dudes having a pint in the back of a pub, expressing their opinions

I would love to believe that Clayton leveled this case, on his way out the door, as an attempt to “burn the house down” through exposing corruption, but it would be such a long shot approach to dealing with the issue. I generously give it a 10% chance of being real.

I’ll go 30% Clayton was just as deep in the swamp as the others, and dropped it as an attempt to claim innocence through whistle blowing. The old  “when I found out about it…” defense

ill put the remaining 60% (plus ill borrow another 15 against the other 2 theories) that corruption was rampant before this case, and will continue long after. 
The SEC was not blindsided or even surprised by RL motions during discovery. I sense no panic. But I hope Im wrong.

However when I consider the fact that hodlr’s like myself, twitter fans, you-tubers, and xrparmy, all bought XRP expecting it to go up in price, makes me feel that we all are helping sell the SEC case.

I am not against (in fact fully support) removing govts from the issuance of wealth, and having a truly decentralized trustless system, but the escrow prevents that with XRP, and that “elephant” keeps getting ignored.

Cheers! 🍺🍻🍺. Like yourself I understand what the definition of attack means, and written words to an anonymous reader, can never rise to the level.

You are free to unleash the fury. I can take it, after all this where I spend my down time.😀

[HAL1000]

MY OPINIONS, LOL, do not reflect the official stance of XRP chat (even though I have become a made man here, in recent times, mafia style)

I don't think the SEC have a case, but they keep fishing, they keep delaying, the backlash, Deatons motion, Hester's open defiance, political figures now pointing fingers, is all pointing to a small clique, who will not win. In the past, these things could go under the Radar, but things are changing in ways this clique are ill prepared for. Traditional media is dying, and social media is rising, some YT'ers have bigger audiences than some network TV shows and this hornets nest is out for blood.

Billions vs the 1% and their corrupt puppets, is how this story ends, not 1% winning at the expense of ALL of us again, the biggest wealth transfer in history, is indeed coming, how this plays out, is up to ALL of US, not THEM.

[Julian_Williams]

2 hours ago, HAL1000 said:

MY OPINIONS, LOL, do not reflect the official stance of XRP chat (even though I have become a made man here, in recent times, mafia style)

I don't think the SEC have a case, but they keep fishing, they keep delaying, the backlash, Deatons motion, Hester's open defiance, political figures now pointing fingers, is all pointing to a small clique, who will not win. In the past, these things could go under the Radar, but things are changing in ways this clique are ill prepared for. Traditional media is dying, and social media is rising, some YT'ers have bigger audiences than some network TV shows and this hornets nest is out for blood.

Billions vs the 1% and their corrupt puppets, is how this story ends, not 1% winning at the expense of ALL of us again, the biggest wealth transfer in history, is indeed coming, how this plays out, is up to ALL of US, not THEM.

These last 2-3 weeks have been fascinating.   The atmosphere has gone from how are Ripple going to get off the SEC hook? to how is SEC going to survive the tidal wave of scrutiny and litigation that will come in the wake of the revelations that are being pieced together from the information we have already got? 

I think DAI deserves a lot of credit for building a library of video clips on a time line.  This has demonstrated to me at least that SEC are now drowning in a very deep slurry pit. 

....and how crass to open a new front on Defi when they have so much to clear up in their backyard.  I think Gensler has completely lost it. 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Julian_Williams

[Guest]

12 hours ago, Valhalla_Guy said:

However when I consider the fact that hodlr’s like myself, twitter fans, you-tubers, and xrparmy, all bought XRP expecting it to go up in price, makes me feel that we all are helping sell the SEC case.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this. Speculating on an asset alone doesn’t make it a security or help make the SEC’s case. We do that all the time with gold, real estate, memorabilia etc. 

All prongs of the Howey test must apply.

Ultimately, the best case that the SEC can allege is that for a while during the initial years, XRPL wasn’t sufficiently decentralised (as in Ripple ran a majority of the UNL) and that Ripple was the only developer on XRPL, with the ledger (though capable) not being used for anything other than pure speculation (no utility). None of those arguments will work today. And even for the early years, I don’t know how they would win the fair notice argument because Judge Netburn agreed that the objective interpretation matters and not the subjective.

In addition, I highly suspect that when the case was filed, the SEC failed to do the research on how XRPL’s consensus works. It’s the only major crypto where concentration of tokens does not give control over the network. So all Ripple/BG/CL have to show is that they never manipulated the market and that their sales never caused a price dump (or only pay fines for when they did - eg due to the CMC fake volumes). 

I think that even if the SEC wins on the Fair Notice (they shouldn’t and I hope they won’t), I think it is unlikely that they will prove Howey to this day.

[brianwalden]

3 hours ago, Ripley said:

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this. Speculating on an asset alone doesn’t make it a security or help make the SEC’s case. We do that all the time with gold, real estate, memorabilia etc. 

All prongs of the Howey test must apply.

Ultimately, the best case that the SEC can allege is that for a while during the initial years, XRPL wasn’t sufficiently decentralised (as in Ripple ran a majority of the UNL) and that Ripple was the only developer on XRPL, with the ledger (though capable) not being used for anything other than pure speculation (no utility). None of those arguments will work today. And even for the early years, I don’t know how they would win the fair notice argument because Judge Netburn agreed that the objective interpretation matters and not the subjective.

In addition, I highly suspect that when the case was filed, the SEC failed to do the research on how XRPL’s consensus works. It’s the only major crypto where concentration of tokens does not give control over the network. So all Ripple/BG/CL have to show is that they never manipulated the market and that their sales never caused a price dump (or only pay fines for when they did - eg due to the CMC fake volumes). 

I think that even if the SEC wins on the Fair Notice (they shouldn’t and I hope they won’t), I think it is unlikely that they will prove Howey to this day.

This is exactly the type of post I wanted to respond with, but didn't have the time. I'd like to add that in the early days, retail was much more involved in actually using the ledger. I bought all my XRP directly on ledger and was using the ledger every day for trading, payments, and proto-DeFi. The 2016, FinCEN agreement was the nail in the coffin for retail involvement on the ledger. Ripple stopped providing the RippleTrade wallet, shut down the Bitcoin bridge, and stopped supporting the gateways (the only gateway available to Americans went under). If the SEC's case is somehow based on retail involvement turning to mere speculation in Ripple in 2016, it's almost like cross-agency entrapment.

[Valhalla_Guy]

5 hours ago, Ripley said:

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this. Speculating on an asset alone doesn’t make it a security or help make the SEC’s case. We do that all the time with gold, real estate, memorabilia etc. 

All prongs of the Howey test must apply.

Ultimately, the best case that the SEC can allege is that for a while during the initial years, XRPL wasn’t sufficiently decentralised (as in Ripple ran a majority of the UNL) and that Ripple was the only developer on XRPL, with the ledger (though capable) not being used for anything other than pure speculation (no utility). None of those arguments will work today. And even for the early years, I don’t know how they would win the fair notice argument because Judge Netburn agreed that the objective interpretation matters and not the subjective.

In addition, I highly suspect that when the case was filed, the SEC failed to do the research on how XRPL’s consensus works. It’s the only major crypto where concentration of tokens does not give control over the network. So all Ripple/BG/CL have to show is that they never manipulated the market and that their sales never caused a price dump (or only pay fines for when they did - eg due to the CMC fake volumes). 

I think that even if the SEC wins on the Fair Notice (they shouldn’t and I hope they won’t), I think it is unlikely that they will prove Howey to this day.

I appreciate your opinion, and do not entirely disagree with most of it, however  the fact that there are thousand of nodes and validators spread around the world is meaningless to proving decentralization.  Even if we ignore the fact that a very large portion of the validators are still RL owned, one needs to deal with the real elephant that you are standing beside. 

So I ask “Why keep ignoring the escrow?”

Would you state that the USD is decentralized because there are tens of thousands of private banks, all validating ledger transactions through various methods and means? Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. We all agree that the USD IS centralized because at any time the US govt can dump or burn more dollars, direcrly controlling the market price.

Claiming RL is different because they “won’t do the bad things that govts do” is naive and ignores the corruption we already witnessed by Mr, G and team resulting from their centralized power. 

Secondly, when you say “all Mr Garlinghouse and team have to do is…” You are asking them to erase history, because their internal communications and social media posts have already betrayed them.
Only Govts can erase history, which they routinely do through control of public schooling, and secret partnerships with the media giants. (Network news, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter etc…) They are all conspiring to keep you down, by tracking your movements, listening to your conversations, and paying folks money to stay home and not attempt financial independence. 
Eventually Govts ALWAYS turn on it’s “partners” and I will enjoy watching the fools that partnered with the govt become the next victims.

RL greedily held all the cards, when it came to XRP. They got caught lying about the escrow distribution (thanks to some on this site) and eventually simply stopped sharing the details of the distributions.

Cleverly dancing around elephants this large, will only make your shoes dirty, it will never change the fact that elephants are smelly, and need to be dealt with.

I close with 2 questions that will help clarify:

1) Ask the majority of crypto enthusiasts “Who owns XRP?” Answer from 99.9% “Ripple” 

2) Ask the same folks “Who owns Bitcoin?” Answer from 99.9% “I don’t know”  the remaining 0.1% get it wrong.

I find this very telling..and even if this is simple perception it is powerful.

[Valhalla_Guy]

18 hours ago, HAL1000 said:

MY OPINIONS, LOL, do not reflect the official stance of XRP chat (even though I have become a made man here, in recent times, mafia style)

I don't think the SEC have a case, but they keep fishing, they keep delaying, the backlash, Deatons motion, Hester's open defiance, political figures now pointing fingers, is all pointing to a small clique, who will not win. In the past, these things could go under the Radar, but things are changing in ways this clique are ill prepared for. Traditional media is dying, and social media is rising, some YT'ers have bigger audiences than some network TV shows and this hornets nest is out for blood.

Billions vs the 1% and their corrupt puppets, is how this story ends, not 1% winning at the expense of ALL of us again, the biggest wealth transfer in history, is indeed coming, how this plays out, is up to ALL of US, not THEM.

This is where we part ways… Wealth transfer by force is pure evil. You sound like a youngster that never learned the difference between the word “Have” and the word “Earned”  
You realize in order to equally distribute wealth, without merit to the receiver, implies that all the power is purely centralized.

Hmmm… your utopia is about as oppressive as centralized power can be… The exact opposite of a trustless decentralized wealth system, where everyone EARNS their wealth based on productivity, innovation and contributions to humanity. 

Reality is if the whole world went to Bitcoin, or any other trustless wealth system, those that are poor will be poorer because Govts can no longer print money to feed them, at the expense of the earners.

I would love to be paid every Friday in BTC. This way govts would have no way to devalue my earnings on Monday. 

I would like to know whom you have in mind that can own the power of deciding what is a fair amount of wealth for each human, and what happens to the excess wealth?

The only one that I can imagine that has the ethics and ability to avoid the corruptive forces of power, would be Jesus.

Unfortunately he is not available, and does not hold fond memories of his last visit.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Valhalla_Guy said:

We all agree that the USD IS centralized because at any time the US govt can dump or burn more dollars, direcrly controlling the market price.

And Ripple won’t do it for the same reason the US government doesn’t. XRP will cease to be used by anyone. It’s in Ripple’s interest to not destroy the markets they spent over a decade to create.

1 hour ago, Valhalla_Guy said:

Even if we ignore the fact that a very large portion of the validators are still RL owned, one needs to deal with the real elephant that you are standing beside.

This is patently verifiable to be not accurate. Ripple only has one or two nodes in the UNL. The validators don’t matter for consensus in XRPL. The UNL is what matters. And Ripple is nowhere close to owning a large portion of the validators either.

1 hour ago, Valhalla_Guy said:

RL greedily held all the cards, when it came to XRP. They got caught lying about the escrow distribution (thanks to some on this site) and eventually simply stopped sharing the details of the distributions.

Can you explain how ? The FinCEN settlement of 2015 forced Ripple to have a publicly verifiable distribution schedule. They have been publishing quarterly sales data for a couple of years now. No other crypto company has volunteered or been forced to show this amount of transparency. 

1 hour ago, Valhalla_Guy said:

Secondly, when you say “all Mr Garlinghouse and team have to do is…” You are asking them to erase history, because their internal communications and social media posts have already betrayed them.

I didn’t suggest that anyone erase anything. Perhaps you were referring to allegations that the SEC made ? The SEC still needs to prove it in court. If Ripple and its principals are guilty of manipulating markets, they need to be punished. I was simply referring to the merits of the SEC lawsuit.

1 hour ago, Valhalla_Guy said:

I close with 2 questions that will help clarify:

1) Ask the majority of crypto enthusiasts “Who owns XRP?” Answer from 99.9% “Ripple” 

2) Ask the same folks “Who owns Bitcoin?” Answer from 99.9% “I don’t know”  the remaining 0.1% get it wrong.

I look at this as a positive and not a negative, in favour of XRPL. Two reasons:

- Having a lot of BTC (I.e money) let’s you control the Bitcoin network. Same with Ethereum, Cardano and other Proof of Stake networks. Having a lot of XRP gets you dipsh*t in terms of network control.

- We at least know who the big whale is, with XRPL. If Ripple dumps XRP, we will know right away. We know their wallets. Do you know when someone dumps BTC after pumping it up ? I didn’t see anyone calling out Elon after he pumped and dumped BTC at all time high, laser eyes and all. I don’t see anyone calling out Vitalik and the Ethereum foundation for dumping at the 2017 all time high and going to the extent of halting trading because of a hack. 
 

Be patient, and let the cards fall where they may with the lawsuit. Don’t assume guilt or innocence on either party. And let’s keep politics out of it 😊 Cheers.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Ripley

[HAL1000]

"The exact opposite of a trustless decentralized wealth system, where everyone EARNS their wealth based on productivity, innovation and contributions to humanity."

 

[Valhalla_Guy]

3 minutes ago, HAL1000 said:

"The exact opposite of a trustless decentralized wealth system, where everyone EARNS their wealth based on productivity, innovation and contributions to humanity."

 

Worthless propaganda, for the mindless to consume.

Go earn a dollar, and then have it taken from you, so those that sit on their asses all day, can have the same wealth as you earned.

Already been tried numerous times, always ends the same way. 
Look at the USSR, Musiliany’s Italy, Castro’s Cuba… The inadequate and immature always fall for the simplistic promise of equal wealth through forceful distribution. Then they realize over time that only poverty can be equally distributed, and the distributor’s always remain wealthy.

Ever see a politician standing in an urban ghetto campaigning for equal wealth to their audience? Why do they never say “You and I will be equally wealthy” Rather they promise “better days through Govt dependence”  to the audience, and then they drive off in their 10 vehicle caravan of limos to their luxury hotel, expecting to be served by those they oppress. 
This is why progressives in America insist  that immigrants do not need to learn English. Keeping immigrant folks uneducated keeps themselves in power. After all would you hire a lawyer or a doctor, that you cannot even talk to?
No but I bet you would not care if it is your house cleaner or gardener? 
It is pure evil, no different than the Virginia democrat leaders imprisoning Robert E. Lee for teaching black children how to read. (Yes Lee was an abolitionist, but Govts have to hide that reality in the name of progressiveness)

I laugh to keep from crying when I see youngsters tear down statues erected by Democrat leaders, then hug the Democrat politician that is egging them on.
Erasing history leads to these strange bed fellows.

[Valhalla_Guy]

48 minutes ago, Ripley said:

And Ripple won’t do it for the same reason the US government doesn’t. XRP will cease to be used by anyone. It’s in Ripple’s interest to not destroy the markets they spent over a decade to create.

The US Govt does do it. Just this year alone, they printed more money than the entire GDP.

Secondly stating Ripple wont do it, implies that Ripple has the choice, and hence centralized.

As for public disclosure of escrow sales, RL is entirely a privately owned company, under no obligation of providing any financial data, much less accurate data.
Stating that RL “can” or “could” or “does” disclose this type of info, again admits to centralized control of the info.

Not a winning argument from your side.

In the eyes of the SEC, the 2015 ruling sealed the deal when it comes to centralizing power to RL. Ripple did not appeal the ruling, asking for third party stewardship of the escrow; rather they claimed victory, grabbed the power and the tokens, and started digging their own graves.

[HAL1000]

"Worthless propaganda, for the mindless to consume."

OK well I'm going to get a new drinking buddy, I doubt you understand where I'm coming from

P.s. I'm not American and nobody in the current system earns wealth, they just earn more debt, good luck earning your way out of it.

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
Henry Ford

[brianwalden]

1 hour ago, Valhalla_Guy said:

I appreciate your opinion, and do not entirely disagree with most of it, however  the fact that there are thousand of nodes and validators spread around the world is meaningless to proving decentralization.  Even if we ignore the fact that a very large portion of the validators are still RL owned, one needs to deal with the real elephant that you are standing beside. 

So I ask “Why keep ignoring the escrow?”

Would you state that the USD is decentralized because there are tens of thousands of private banks, all validating ledger transactions through various methods and means? Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. We all agree that the USD IS centralized because at any time the US govt can dump or burn more dollars, direcrly controlling the market price.

Claiming RL is different because they “won’t do the bad things that govts do” is naive and ignores the corruption we already witnessed by Mr, G and team resulting from their centralized power. 

Secondly, when you say “all Mr Garlinghouse and team have to do is…” You are asking them to erase history, because their internal communications and social media posts have already betrayed them.
Only Govts can erase history, which they routinely do through control of public schooling, and secret partnerships with the media giants. (Network news, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter etc…) They are all conspiring to keep you down, by tracking your movements, listening to your conversations, and paying folks money to stay home and not attempt financial independence. 
Eventually Govts ALWAYS turn on it’s “partners” and I will enjoy watching the fools that partnered with the govt become the next victims.

RL greedily held all the cards, when it came to XRP. They got caught lying about the escrow distribution (thanks to some on this site) and eventually simply stopped sharing the details of the distributions.

Cleverly dancing around elephants this large, will only make your shoes dirty, it will never change the fact that elephants are smelly, and need to be dealt with.

I close with 2 questions that will help clarify:

1) Ask the majority of crypto enthusiasts “Who owns XRP?” Answer from 99.9% “Ripple” 

2) Ask the same folks “Who owns Bitcoin?” Answer from 99.9% “I don’t know”  the remaining 0.1% get it wrong.

I find this very telling..and even if this is simple perception it is powerful.

None of this has anything to do with the only thing that matters: is XRP a security?

Being centralized doesn't make something a security (but apparently according to Mr. Hinman's totally private opinion, becoming decentralized can magically turn a security into a non-security). Ripple's huge escrow doesn't make XRP a security any more than someone cornering a commodity market would turn it into a security. It doesn't matter what other people think - if everyone thinks I'm Satoshi Nakamoto, that doesn't make me the inventor of Bitcoin.

The only thing that matters is whether or not Ripple sold XRP as an investment in Ripple, the company. I can't speak for all of their sales, but I do know that when I first bought XRP in 2014, they were explicit that it was not an investment in Ripple and they sold private stock if that's the type of thing you were interested in.

Whatever other sins Ripple has committed are for other courts to try; this one is only concerned with whether or not Ripple sold unregistered securities.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Valhalla_Guy said:

The US Govt does do it. Just this year alone, they printed more money than the entire GDP.

Secondly stating Ripple wont do it, implies that Ripple has the choice, and hence centralized.

As for public disclosure of escrow sales, RL is entirely a privately owned company, under no obligation of providing any financial data, much less accurate data.
Stating that RL “can” or “could” or “does” disclose this type of info, again admits to centralized control of the info.

Not a winning argument from your side.

In the eyes of the SEC, the 2015 ruling sealed the deal when it comes to centralizing power to RL. Ripple did not appeal the ruling, asking for third party stewardship of the escrow; rather they claimed victory, grabbed the power and the tokens, and started digging their own graves.

Concentration of wealth is not centralisation my friend. All the things you accuse of Ripple being able to do - sure. That also holds good for Microstrategy, Winklevoss twins, CZ, Pomp, and several others with Bitcoin. And so does Vitalik with Ethereum. And Musk. And Jack Dorsey. And Ashton Kutcher. And Satoshi. Let’s not apply double standards here. They all have massive concentration of assets. The way Alex M controls Celsius. Or Charles controls ADA. The way Charlie Lee dumped on LTC. 

Centralisation is control of the network consensus. The way PoS networks let the people with most tokens control the consensus mechanism. The way mining power (and therefore money) controls PoW networks. 

Having 20B XRP can let you dump the tokens sure. But so does the equivalent of Bitcoin. But having 20B equivalent of ETH or BTC gives you control of those networks. Having 20B of XRP gets you nothing in terms of control of XRPL.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Ripley

[Valhalla_Guy]

22 minutes ago, brianwalden said:

Being centralized doesn't make something a security

Correct, but it is the first 50% of the standard.
The remaining 50% is the intent and methods of distribution.