Regulatory changes may be the reason why the crypto market is on a bearish market today, but in reality, this is needed in order for the industry to mature. Many are anticipating the entry of institutional investors once there the rules are set for the crypto market.
Bitcoin and Ethereum were considered by the US Securities and Exchange Commission as commodities. However, things aren’t the same for Ripple. Ripple is currently dealing with multiple lawsuits. The lawsuits claim that the cryptocurrency is actually a security and not a commodity.
And because of this, Ripple is doing its best to decentralize XRP. It has hired new people into the team including banking industry veteran Kahina Van Dyke. Van Dyke worked as Facebook’s global payments director. And also, cryptographer David Schwartz filled in the role of chief technology officer.
Making Progress Legally
The good news is that Ripple was able to consolidate the multiple lawsuits that are filed against them. Ripple which has been sued by multiple parties claiming that XRP is a security was able to combine the cases. This means that it has limited the number of cases that it has to fight all at once.
The lawsuit that was filed by investor David Oconer was formally designated as “complex litigation”. What complex litigation means is that it will be coordinated with the remaining lawsuits against Ripple. Another case filed in California, the one filed by Vladi Zakinov has been deemed as complex in June 2018.
According to the rules in the state of California, a complex designation takes place happens when the case involves “securities claims or investment losses involving many parties”. This means that there will be only one judge that will oversee the actions. And this makes perfect sense since it prevents different results.
The case is now assigned to Judge Marie Weiner. She is the judge who Ripple successfully disqualified from presiding the Zakinov case. Will Ripple try to disqualify the judge from overseeing the case?
Also, another class-action suit, this time around filed by Ryan Coffey was voluntarily dismissed by the investor. The case was then moved to the District Court of the Northern District of California by Ripple.
Ripple’s Future
It seemed that Ripple is looking to stay relevant using different tricks. It has donated funds to universities in order to get more people into the blockchain industry. In addition to this, Ripple also partnered with Western Union and banks with the ultimate goal to bring down the cost of cross-border transactions.
But is the future bright for Ripple? According to a recent report by Satis Group, there is a chance that Ripple is on its way to crash by 97% in the next five years. The report also brought bad news to Cardano, Bitcoin Cash, and Stellar.
The report concludes that “Within the currency networks, we continue to see…meaningful downside from networks that have inherited brand recognition and potentially short-lived adoption during hiccups from their fork-parent (such as BCH), and very little value in networks that are misleadingly marketed and not even required for use within their own network (such as XRP)”. Could this be an accurate assessment of XRP?
