Ripple to secure legal victory in lawsuit against SEC, lawyer predicts

Stock Photo – cdn.pixabay.com

Crypto attorney John Deaton has expressed optimism about Ripple’s chances in its lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Ripple chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty’s strong belief that the lawsuit is leaning in Ripple’s favor prompted the positive outlook. Deaton predicts a “99.9 percent legal victory” for Ripple in this ongoing legal battle, by which he means Ripple is settling for $20 million or less.

“The people who’ve argued that the SEC got a 50-50 victory in the @Ripple case are wrong. It was more like 90-10 in Ripple’s favor. If Ripple ends up paying $20M or less it’s a 99.9% legal victory,” said Deaton in a social media post.

Besides Deaton, lawyer Bill Morgan also predicts that the SEC’s odds of winning an appeal against Ripple are slim. He said there was only a three percent chance of the SEC succeeding in its appeal against Ripple.

“I don’t see any obvious appellable error other than in Ripple’s favor in respect of ODL sales which don’t meet at least two prongs of the Howey test. The SEC’s prospects of success on appeal are very slim and I feel generous today so I am giving it 3% chance of success on appeal,” Morgan said in a social media post.

Morgan’s forecast is based on statistics provided by attorney Jeremy Hogan, who had shared government data on appeal success rates for different cases. Based on the data, the SEC has a 14.2 percent chance of winning its appeal in the Ripple case.

In December 2020, the SEC initiated a lawsuit against Ripple, claiming that they had sold XRP as an unregistered security, raising more than $1.3 billion.

On July 13, Judge Analisa Torres ruled that selling XRP to retail investors is not an illegal securities sale.

XRP price rally continues

Ripple’s XRP is performing well, having increased by 6.1 percent in 24 hours and now standing at $0.646957. According to CoinGecko data, XRP has mostly seen positive gains over the past month. It has risen by 17.5 percent in the past week and 25.5 percent in the past two weeks. Since October 6, its price has risen by 25.2 percent.

Google Trends data show that XRP has become more popular than Ethereum (ETH) in 47 U.S. states, notably in Delaware, Nevada, Louisiana, Arizona and Hawaii.

XRP’s price performance in 2023 has been mainly shaped by the Ripple-SEC lawsuit, with Ripple’s legal wins contributing to a positive trend for XRP.

Analysts have different predictions for the token, with some expecting a modest increase to 90 cents in the next year, while others have a bold estimate of $500.

“From the 2023 New Value Report by #Ripple. $250T is expected by 2027 just in cross-border payments! A $500 XRP price just doesn’t seem like enough to facilitate that amount. $xrp #xrpisnotasecurity,” crypto analyst Shannon Thorp said in a social media post.

XRP crossed the 200-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) on October 21, resulting in nearly a 20 percent increase in the following 11 days.

Experts believe that, even though it faced resistance around the $0.625 mark, there is a chance for another positive move if XRP’s price stays above $0.60.