Major crypto exchanges such as Coinbase (COIN) and Kraken have relisted the XRP token (XRPUSD) after a federal judge ruled yesterday that XRP is not a security. XRP prices are up almost 25% today, making the token now the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Key Takeways
- Coinbase, Kraken, and other major crypto exchanges have relisted Ripple’s XRP in response to a court ruling that the digital asset itself is not an offering of an investment contract.
- Coinbase stock rose on the news of the ruling, in anticiation that it will be helpful in the crypto exchange’s own court case against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
- The ruling in the Ripple case should not be viewed as the final say on crypto asset regulation, as the SEC can still appeal the ruling and the U.S. Congress is currently developing legislation around the crypto industry.
Coinbase, Kraken, and Others Relist XRP for Trading
U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres determined that XRP is not a security when traded on secondary exchanges, granting Ripple a partial victory in the ongoing case that began in December 2020.
Coinbase began XRP trading again once liquidity conditions were met on Thursday. Similarly, Kraken has also relisted XRP for U.S. traders, with trading against various fiat pairs as well as ETH, BTC, and USDT.
Gemini has also expressed its exploration of listing XRP for both spot and derivatives trading. Additionally, Bitstamp, which has a longstanding relationship with Ripple, also relisted the digital asset for its U.S. customers on Thursday.
The recent ruling in the Ripple case has given analysts a more positive outlook about Coinbase for its own case with the SEC. Coinbase and Binance were both recently sued by the regulator for allegedly operating unlicensed securities exchanges. Notably, Binance never delisted XRP from its trading platform based outside the U.S.; however, XRP was delisted from its Binance.US affiliate.
Coinbase stock saw a significant increase of roughly 24% in the past two days. The stock had also already been on an upswing in response to recent filings for spot bitcoin ETFs by major traditional finance players such as BlackRock.
Questions Still Remain
Despite the view from multiple exchanges that it is now safe to relist XRP on their platforms, a number of crypto legal experts have pointed out that the classification of XRP as a non-security is not necessarily set in stone. For one, the legal classification of various crypto assets is far from finalized, and the SEC still has the ability to appeal the decision handed down on Thursday.
“The only thing this ruling guarantees for cryptocurrency issuers, then, is continued uncertainty in the cryptocurrency markets – uncertainty which Congress, and only Congress, can step in to correct,” wrote Brown Rudnick Partner Preston Byrne.
Additionally, there is a note in the Ripple court order that explicitly states that the court has made no ruling on whether secondary sales of XRP on exchanges constitute an investment contract offering. “The Court does not address whether secondary market sales of XRP constitute offers and sales of investment contracts because that question is not properly before the Court,” the order said.
