Ripple Backs SEC’s Proposed Crypto Regulation, Calls for End to Case-by-Case Enforcement

When the SEC sued in 2020, XRP fell about 70% within days. A 2023 court ruling then added roughly $21 billion, and exchanges relisted it. Ripple filed a comment letter with the SEC, voicing support for the agency’s proposed Regulation Crypto Assets and urging it to finalize the rule. As per the company, the proposal allows replacing years of regulatory uncertainty that worked on a case-by-case basis with an established framework of laws, all the while maintaining protection for investors under existing regulations. What Ripple Wants the SEC to Keep and Change The proposal’s core idea is that the investment contract, not the token, is the security. Stuart Alderoty, Ripple’s chief legal officer, called that faithful to Howey, the 1946 Supreme Court case that defines an investment contract, and wrote: “What matters is what an issuer actually promised and when those promises end, not a subjective ‘decentralized’ test.” Rule 400, a proposed safe harbor, would let an issuer file a public Form TR certifying that the work it promised buyers is finished or abandoned. Ripple opposes an SEC suggestion to limit it to issuers that fulfilled their promises, arguing that buyers can no longer expe...