Ripple to Drop Appeal in SEC Case Over XRP Sales, Ending Case 'Once and for All'

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said on Friday that the fintech will drop its cross appeal in a long-running case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The announcement comes just a day after U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres denied a proposal from Ripple Labs and the SEC to cut a $125 million penalty or toss out an injunction imposed against the XRP-linked firm last year.

That decision followed less than two weeks after the SEC and Ripple requested that the court lower a civil penalty over illegal XRP sales to $50 million—far less than the $2 billion sought under former Chair Gary Gensler—and remove restrictions on Ripple’s ability to sell the asset.

"Ripple is dropping our cross appeal, and the SEC is expected to drop their appeal, as they've previously said," Garlinghouse wrote on X. "We're closing this chapter once and for all, and focusing on what’s most important—building the internet of value. Lock in."

On Thursday, Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty said on X that "the ball is back in our court." The company had yet to decide at the time whether to proceed with an appeal, but "either way, XRP's legal status as not a security remains unchanged," he added.

The SEC in 2020 hit Ripple with a $1.3 billion lawsuit, alleging that the company sold unregistered securities in the form of the cryptocurrency XRP to investors to raise funds.

Then, in 2023, a judge ruled that programmatic sales of XRP on cryptocurrency exchanges to retail investors did not qualify as securities.

The ruling was interpreted by both Ripple and the crypto industry as a win at the time, despite the judge also ruling that $728 million worth of tokens for institutional sales did constitute unregistered securities sales.

Wall Street's regulator last year had requested Ripple pay a $2 billion fine under ex-Chair Gary Gensler, but then a New York court ordered the company to pay a mere $125 million penalty. Ripple and the SEC then sought this spring to lower that penalty to $50 million, but faced multiple rounds of pushback in court over the past month.

Since President Donald Trump took office, the SEC under its new leadership has taken a softer stance towards the crypto space, scrapping nearly all of its crypto lawsuits and investigations. President Trump campaigned with promises to help the crypto industry.

XRP was changing hands around $2.12 on Thursday, roughly flat over the past 24 hours, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. Over the past year, XRP has soared 347%.

The asset is the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and was created by the founders of Ripple. It’s also the native token of the XRP Ledger blockchain.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication with additional details.