In an “amicus curiae” brief, the Blockchain Association, a crypto lobbying organization based in Washington, asks the court to permit it to help Ripple and two other defendants in the continuing litigation with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC).
The group criticizes the SEC for arguing that Ripple Labs, Bradley Garlinghouse, and Christian Larsen oversaw the issue of XRP as an unregistered security starting in 2013, according to a motion for leave dated October 28. The group criticized the regulator for issuing a “very broad” interpretation of securities rules, which it claimed was an attempt to apply powers above and beyond its legal authority.
“The SEC’s extremely broad interpretation of the securities laws would have devastating effects on the industry (and even outside the industry). Market participants across the industry already struggle to see through the fog as to how securities laws apply to digital assets due to the SEC’s pattern of regulation by enforcement and its history of inconsistent, incomplete, and confusing public statements.” The document said.
The group also asks the court to consider the specific purpose of a token in determining this prong, noting that the SEC “unlawfully” looked at secondary sales as evidence that the company was breaking federal securities laws, therefore failing the Howey Test, and that the token is an asset rather than a “Investment contract.”
The most recent submission was made against the backdrop of a plethora of motions in favor of Ripple that were submitted after the regulator filed the action at the end of 2020. Spend The Bits Inc. (STB) and Investor Choice Advocates Network (ICAN), a different entity, filed their own amicus brief on Friday in an effort to show how the SEC failed to prove the Howey test.
I-Remit and TapJet requested to submit amicus curiae documents in support of Ripple labs earlier this month, and the judge approved their request. I-Remit argued that it did not use XRP “to speculate on it” or perceive XRP to be an investment. However, aviation management firm TapJets stated that using XRP as a payment method was essential to the provision of its services.
Investor interest has grown as a result of the lawsuit’s potential for wide-ranging impacts on the cryptocurrency market. For supporters of XRP, a victory for Ripple might boost its price following a 75% decline. At the time of publication, XRP was down 2.35 percent over the previous day and was trading at $0.46. Technically, XRP has strong resistance at $0.55 and support along the $0.55 line. As the fundamentals of the token continue to strengthen, a break above that resistance might boost the price as high as $0.90 in the upcoming week.
