Ripple Fined $125 Million to End Securities Lawsuit with SEC, XRP Price Jumps 25%

The court handling the securities lawsuit between the SEC and Ripple has decided to fine the company behind XRP $125 million for the violations it found.

According to documents released early on August 8, Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District Court of New York has fined Ripple $125 million for its illegal securities offering in the form of XRP tokens.

This is part of the verdict in the lawsuit between the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple, which has been going on since late 2020 until now, according to which the SEC accused Ripple of illegally conducting an XRP securities offering and making a profit of $1.3 billion.

However, in mid-2023, Judge Torres ruled that Ripple’s sales of XRP through third-party exchanges were not securities offerings, but that direct sales to institutions were. This ruling partially cleared Ripple of liability, and prevented the SEC from fully convicting the company.

Since then, the two have been at loggerheads over the size of the fine to be imposed on Ripple for its illegal securities offerings. In March 2024, the SEC filed a $2 billion fine against Ripple, which the company strongly opposed.
As a result, Judge Torres set Ripple’s fine at $125 million based on “1,278 transactions with institutional investors found to have violated securities laws,” and ordered the company not to repeat the same behavior in the future.

The SEC also dismissed the charges against Ripple's two senior executives, founder Chris Larsen and CEO Brad Garlinghouse, in October 2023, instead only seeking to prosecute Ripple itself.

Garlinghouse also made a personal statement on Twitter, saying he would respect the court's decision and calling it a legal victory for Ripple, the crypto industry, and justice against the SEC. The CEO also said that the pressure the SEC put on the XRP community was no longer there.

It is still unclear whether the SEC intends to appeal the court's decision.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has long maintained that Ripple's XRP offering to investors constitutes a securities relationship, and wants to impose a hefty fine of $2 billion to set an example. The SEC also fined Terraform Labs - the company behind the LUNA and UST projects - a whopping $4.47 billion in June after Terraform lost its securities lawsuit.
XRP price on the morning of August 8 increased from $0.50 to $0.64 when there was news that the lawsuit between Ripple and the SEC closed with a fine of $125 million, meaning that XRP is no longer accused of being a security.