The SEC and Ripple have agreed that the company will pay only $50 million to settle a long-running lawsuit regarding XRP sales.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Labs have officially closed a legal case that has dragged on for more than four years, since the regulatory body decided to sue the company.
The main regulator on Wall Street, the SEC, announced the settlement on Thursday (8), after Ripple executives stated in March that the agency had backed down. Ripple and two of its executives — CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Executive Chairman Chris Larsen — will pay a total of $50 million to the SEC to settle the case, according to the announcement. Ripple had already disclosed this $50 million settlement in March.
The SEC, under the previous leadership of Gary Gensler — who adopted a tough stance against large cryptocurrency companies during the Biden administration — had initially requested that Ripple pay a fine of $2 billion.
District Judge Analisa Torres had ordered Ripple to pay a fine of $125 million last year. According to the SEC, with the agreement filed in court on Thursday, $50 million will go to the regulatory body, and the remaining funds in escrow (just over $75 million) will be returned to Ripple. The settlement still needs to be approved by Judge Torres.
The long confrontation between Ripple and the SEC
In 2020, the SEC sued Ripple in a $1.3 billion lawsuit, alleging that the company sold unregistered securities in the form of the cryptocurrency XRP to raise funds from investors. Later, in 2023, a judge ruled that programmatic sales of XRP on cryptocurrency exchanges to retail investors did not qualify as securities.
The decision was celebrated by both Ripple and the crypto industry, despite the same judge determining that $728 million in sales to institutional investors did indeed constitute unregistered securities offerings.
Since President Donald Trump took office, the SEC under new leadership has adopted a softer stance towards the crypto sector and has filed various lawsuits and investigations. Trump campaigned promising to help the crypto industry.
XRP is the fourth largest digital currency in circulation, with a market value of over $132 billion. The founders of Ripple created XRP, which is now used by the company in its payment services.
The price of XRP rose after the news broke; the cryptocurrency is now trading at $2.37, up 6.8% in a 24-hour period, according to CoinGecko data.
