Crypto legal expert Jeremy Hogan says the amicus briefs filed in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) lawsuit against Ripple are harming the SEC’s case.
Hogan says the amicus briefs are strengthening Ripple’s case in the lawsuit the markets regulator filed against Ripple alleging XRP to be an unregistered security.
“One of the things you see when you look at these amicus briefs is that some parts are filling in the holes for Ripple and some parts are making new holes in the SEC’s argument.”
Using the example of an amicus brief filed by digital asset payments app SpendTheBits, Hogan says that the filing proves that the XRP Ledger, a blockchain that uses XRP as its native cryptocurrency, is decentralized.
“This brief cues me in on a couple of things very clearly.
First, anyone can use the XRP Ledger and XRP is kind of like you’re having a key to use it. And further, Ripple can’t even control who even uses the XRP Ledger and that makes it sound pretty decentralized. More similar to open-source software…
[The judge] might not understand blockchain technology but she knows that what this brief is describing definitely does not sound like something that is a security.”
Quoting an amicus brief filed by remittance firm I-Remit, the crypto legal expert says it proves that the primary motivation for buying XRP was neither price speculation nor investment purposes.
“Look what the brief does to the SEC’s contention that the principal reason anyone would buy XRP is to simply speculate on the price…
‘I-Remit and countless similar companies that use XRP for cross-border funds transfer on a daily basis are living proof I-Remit does not use XRP to speculate on it nor does it consider XRP to be an investment whose inherent value is expected to increase over time.’
There you have a real-life company talking about a real-life use for XRP.”
According to Hogan, the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple has become a rallying cry for the crypto space against the market regulator.
“This amount of interest and support from the blockchain community is a good and beautiful thing. And I’m glad this case has become somewhat of a rallying cry and focal point against SEC tyranny.”
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