Amicus Curiae In Ripple Vs. SEC Case Files New Motion

The court battle between Ripple and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rages on.

In December 2020, the SEC sued Ripple and its current and former chief executives. The regulator alleged that they carried out $1.3 billion in sales of unregistered securities since the launch of Ripple’s native token, XRP.

Since then, the lawsuit has been deliberated upon in different dimensions, with several issues popping out once in a while.

Currently, the case is moving toward the Summary Judgement announcement even as the amicus curiae files a new request.

An amicus curiae, sometimes known as a “friend of the court,” is an individual or organization that is not a party to a legal dispute but is permitted to assist the court by providing relevant information, expertise, or insight.

Lawyer Files New Request In Legal Showdown

According to the report from attorney James Filan on Twitter, lawyer Rodrigo Seira filed a motion in the ongoing case between Ripple and SEC. Seira is requesting to appear as pro hac vice on behalf of Paradigm Operations LP in the case.

Pro hac vice is the legal term for adding an attorney to a case in a state where they are not authorized to do so so long as they do not engage in unauthorized legal practice.

Paradigm is a company that backs digital assets-related and Web3 firms. It noted in its motion that the SEC crosses certain boundaries in the lawsuit.

It reported that the regulator’s rhetoric is beyond the requirement of its claims or the support of the law. SEC categorized the XRP tokens and, by extension, several other crypto assets as securities.

Also, the motion stated that the difference between offer and sale transactions and underlying cryptocurrencies is critical.

It can be recalled that the SEC has received criticism due to its enforcement actions. The regulator has been issuing fines and applying stringent policies on the crypto firms to enforce regulations.

Within the crypto industry, SEC chairman Gary Gensler has earned the title ‘bad cop’ of the digital currency sector.

Whales’ Accumulation Of XRP Keeps Growing

Even with the ongoing case, crypto whales have not lost interest in XRP. Over the past 24 hours, the whales have moved more than 111 million XRP tokens. The report noted that the transferred tokens in the past day were worth almost $42.6 million.

A whale moved XRP tokens worth over $15.9 million in a single transaction from the Bitso crypto exchange. This new accumulation just happened despite the prevailing price dump.

Additionally, some whales have moved about 70 million XRP tokens to the Bitstamp crypto exchange over the last 24 hours. Other transaction movements also amount to $26.6 million worth of XRP tokens in the same timeframe.

The price of XRP plummeted by about 7% over the last day. At the time of writing, the token is trading at $0.3531.