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Blockchain technology is about to transform every trust-based interaction of our lives, from financial services to identity, from health care to our Internet of Things devices. In this podcast, host Laura Shin talks with industry pioneers across tech, financial services, health care, government and other sectors about how the blockchain and cryptocurrency will open up new opportunities for incumbents, startups and everyday people to interact more efficiently, directly and globally.

Jan 19, 2021

Stephen Palley, partner at Anderson Kill. and Gabriel Shapiro, partner at BSV Law, discuss the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple and two executives, Chris Larsen and Bard Garlinghouse. In this episode, they explain:

  • what was so "egregious" that the SEC went after two executives, Chris Larsen and Brad Garlinghouse, were charged 
  • why their sales showed an information asymmetry, and why that matters
  • why the complaint comes close to being a fraud case, but why the SEC didn't charge them with fraud
  • why the idea that XRP is a currency and therefore cannot be a security will likely not fly
  • why it's unlikely the case will go to the Supreme Court
  • the SEC's case for why XRP is a security, and Ripple's role in it
  • how even on a technical level, the XRP network is centralized
  • how strong the SEC's case is against Larsen and Garlinghouse
  • Stephen's and Gabriel's predictions on how the lawsuit will play out
  • how this will likely impact XRP investors
  • whether or not Ripple could become an SEC-reporting company and XRP a security
  • what happened with Ripple's lead investor in its most recent fundraising round
  • whether or not the SEC might go after exchanges or other players who made money off XRP or collaborated with Ripple around XRP trading
  • what this means for Coinbase, in particular, because it's going public later this year
  • what Ripple's defense, in its summarized Wells submission, was 
  • how this case compares to some of the other big SEC/crypto securities cases, Kik/Kin and Telegram
  • whether there might ever be a digital token that is determined to be a security for specific transactions but not others
  • what the wider implications of the case are for the rest of the crypto industry 

 

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

1inch: https://1inch.exchange

 

Episode links: 

Stephen Palley: https://twitter.com/stephendpalley

Gabriel Shapiro: https://twitter.com/lex_node

 

SEC lawsuit against Ripple: https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2020/comp-pr2020-338.pdf

 

SEC lawsuit against Ripple being close to a fraud case: https://twitter.com/stephendpalley/status/1341523294344896515?s=20

 

Former SEC commissioner Joe Grundefest on the case: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/89164/former-sec-commissioner-says-ripple-lawsuit-will-cause-multi-billion-dollar-losses-to-innocent-third-parties

 

Other lawsuit against Ripple: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.334410/gov.uscourts.cand.334410.115.0.pdf

 

Technical assessment of Ripple network: https://cryptobern.github.io/noconsensusripple/

 

Tetragon’s case against Ripple: https://twitter.com/stephendpalley/status/1346531087971999749?s=20

 

What the case means for exchanges: https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-delist-xrp-exchanges-dilemma

 

Coinbase suspends trading in XRP: https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-will-suspend-trading-in-xrp-on-january-19-2e09652dbf57

https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-suspends-xrp-trading

 

Lawsuit against Coinbase: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-30/coinbase-sued-over-xrp-commissions-after-sec-pursues-ripple?sref=m9L277rN

https://twitter.com/stephendpalley/status/1344352455895691269?s=20

 

People in the industry thinking for a while that XRP is a security: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/57366/xrp-is-probably-a-security-dont-at-me

 

Mary Jo White: https://www.coindesk.com/former-sec-chair-represents-ripple-xrp-lawsuit


Ripple’s Wells submission: https://ripple.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Ripple-Wells-Submission-Summary.pdf