The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued a notice appealing the court’s earlier ruling about $XRP sales. The motion was presented to the Second Court of the Court of Appeals two months after District Judge Analisa Torres partly favored Ripple.

$XRP Faces Market Cap Decline as Price Struggles Below $0.50 Support

As a result of the move mentioned above, $XRP has lost a huge portion of its market cap. As per the following XRP price chart by CoinMarketCap, $XRP is down 12% once going below $0.50 support. However, it has started to recover currently trading at $0.52.

Market capitalization is $28.88 billion and trading volume has risen by 16.87%. The variance shows that bearish pressure is present in the longer term and has become more dominant in recent years due to market fluctuations and volatile conditions.

SEC’s Appeal Targets Key Aspects of Ripple’s Victory

The SEC’s first complaint was that they violated the Securities Act of 1933. Ripple and two of its executives, Bradley Garlinghouse & Christian A. Larsen, faced charges. To some extent, July 13, 2023, saw Judge Torres make a mixed-bag decision. 

While the SEC’s motion for summary judgment concerning Ripple’s Institutional Sales was granted, its claim regarding Programmatic Sales and other distributions, including sales by Garlinghouse and Larsen, was denied. The court ruled that these sales did not meet the Howey test requirements, considering XRP was not an investment contract.

Moreover, the SEC’s motion on the aiding claims against Garlinghouse and Larsen was also denied. The court determined that Ripple’s executives did not know to whom they sold XRP, nor did the buyers know their identities, making the SEC’s claims undefendable.

Ripple ($XRP) Prepares for Another Legal Round

Ripple’s legal team headed by the Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty noted disapproval but anticipation of such action by the SEC. Alderoty observed that there were no elements of fraud; there were no victims; and no money was lost in the case.

Ripple continues to stand by the law; it argues that the SEC’s lawsuit has been misdirected from the beginning. Garlinghouse further joined the social media frenzy, doubling down on the fact that XRP remains a non-security despite the appeal.