SEC Files Amended Complaint Against Ripple, as Pretrial Begins

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed an amended complaint towards Ripple, alleging that it willfully misled investors with XRP.

The amended complaint got filed just a few days before the pretrial hearing between the SEC and Ripple, which began on February 22. While it originally accused Ripple Labs and its top executives of violating securities laws with a $1.3 billion XRP sale, the regulatory body is now alleging that Garlinghouse and Larsen intentionally manipulated XRP’s market price by increasing and lowering their XRP sales to suit market conditions.

The amended SEC complaint stated that “from at least 2013 through the present, Defendants sold over 14.6 billion units of a digital asset security called ‘XRP,’ in return for cash or other consideration worth over $1.38 billion US Dollars (‘USD’), to fund Ripple’s operations and enrich Larsen and Garlinghouse.”

However, the General Counsel to Ripple, Stuart Alderoty, noted that the new complaint brought forward no arguments and that there was only one legal question to be settled; whether or not XRP is considered a security under US investment laws. According to a recent tweet on the matter, Alderoty tweeted: “as many of you have seen, the SEC filed an amended complaint. The only legal claim remains: did certain distributions of XRP constitute an investment contract? Disappointing the SEC needed to try to ‘fix’ their complaint after waiting years to bring it in the first place…”

Key XRP Levels to Watch — February 24

Following yesterday’s crypto market bloodbath, XRP appears to be regaining its bullish momentum and is up by 3.6% at press time. That said, the seventh-largest cryptocurrency has to break back above the $0.5400 resistance to establish a renewed bullish dominance.

That said, we could see the price stall (consolidate) below the $0.5400 resistance in the coming hours. On the flip side, only a sustained drop below the $0.4524 support can negate the current bullish momentum.

Meanwhile, our key resistance levels are at $0.5400, $0.6000, and $0.6374. While our key support levels are at $0.4524, $0.3838, and $0.3500.

Total Market Capitalization: $1.54 trillion

XRP Market Capitalization: $22 billion

XRP Dominance: 1.4%

 

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