The SEC's Lawsuit Against Ripple and 2 Execs: What You Need to Know - Ep.208

Episode • Jan 19, 2021 • 1h 10m

Stephen Palley, partner at Anderson Kill. and Gabriel Shapiro, partner at BSV Law, discuss the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple and two executives, Chris Larsen and Bard Garlinghouse. In this episode, they explain:

what was so "egregious" that the SEC went after two executives, Chris Larsen and Brad Garlinghouse, were charged
why their sales showed an information asymmetry, and why that matters
why the complaint comes close to being a fraud case, but why the SEC didn't charge them with fraud
why the idea that XRP is a currency and therefore cannot be a security will likely not fly
why it's unlikely the case will go to the Supreme Court
the SEC's case for why XRP is a security, and Ripple's role in it
how even on a technical level, the XRP network is centralized
how strong the SEC's case is against Larsen and Garlinghouse
Stephen's and Gabriel's predictions on how the lawsuit will play out
how this will likely impact XRP investors
whether or not Ripple could become an SEC-reporting company and XRP a security
what happened with Ripple's lead investor in its most recent fundraising round
whether or not the SEC might go after exchanges or other players who made money off XRP or collaborated with Ripple around XRP trading
what this means for Coinbase, in particular, because it's going public later this year
what Ripple's defense, in its summarized Wells submission, was
how this case compares to some of the other big SEC/crypto securities cases, Kik/Kin and Telegram
whether there might ever be a digital token that is determined to be a security for specific transactions but not others
what the wider implications of the case are for the rest of the crypto industry