TechFlow News — According to the SEC's official website, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formally filed a lawsuit against Ripple, its CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and co-founder Chris Larsen in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The SEC alleges that the defendants raised over $1.3 billion through a continuous, unregistered digital asset securities offering starting from 2013, violating registration provisions of the Securities Act, and is seeking injunctive relief and civil penalties. Additionally, the SEC claims that Ripple distributed billions of XRP tokens in exchange for non-cash consideration, such as labor and market-making services. Beyond organizing and promoting XRP sales to fund corporate operations, Chris Larsen and Brad Garlinghouse also conducted unregistered personal sales of XRP totaling approximately $600 million.
In response, two smaller exchanges, CrossTower and Beaxy, have delisted XRP. Ryan Watkins, research analyst at Messari, stated: "Many cryptocurrency exchanges will be forced to delist XRP, causing liquidity to dry up and leading to a collapse in the XRP price." Alex Thorn, investment manager at Avon Ventures, predicts that Coinbase, which is currently pursuing a public listing, will delist XRP to ensure regulatory compliance.
