The American cryptocurrency exchange PayBito has temporarily halted trading of the XRP token after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Ripple. This is stated in the company’s press release.
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Withdrawal functionality was not affected. The exchange’s representatives said they would monitor the court proceedings to decide on further steps.
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In December 2020, the SEC accused Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse, the company’s CEO, and its co-founder Chris Larsen, of selling unregistered securities in the form of $1.3 billion worth of tokens.
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Following that, XRP trading for US residents was halted by platforms Galaxy Digital, Bitstamp and B2C2, as well as exchanges Coinbase and OKCoin. A similar decision was taken by the trading platform Kraken.
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The asset manager 21Shares removed Ripple’s token from its traded exchange-traded products. The firm Bitwise Asset Management removed the coin from its flagship index fund.
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In January, Grayscale Investments announced the liquidation of an XRP-based trust. Gavin Michael, head of Bakkt’s platform for trading bitcoin derivatives, ruled out adding Ripple’s token to future products.
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Representatives from the platforms Gatehub and the financial conglomerate SBI Holdings expressed support for the coin. The latter noted that XRP is not a security under Japanese law.
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Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the company has always worked in partnership with regulators. In his view, the SEC lawsuit is a “horrific precedent” for the entire cryptocurrency industry.
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At the time of writing, XRP traded at $0.53. On the morning of February 18, the token slipped to the sixth position in the market-cap ranking of crypto assets, as Binance Coin reached a new high of $175.
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Later, the token’s price on Binance rose to $196. According to CoinMarketCap, the asset surpassed Polkadot (DOT) and Cardano (ADA), reaching fourth place in the ranking.
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Earlier, preliminary hearings in the SEC’s case against Ripple were scheduled for February 22.
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Representatives for the parties have already sent to the Southern District of New York’s court a plan and procedure for consideration of the claims. In their view, there is currently no prospect of a pre-trial settlement.
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