The legal battle between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that has been going on since 2020 has ended with the parties withdrawing their appeals.
During the lawsuit, the SEC accused Ripple of selling unregistered securities by raising $1.3 billion through XRP sales. New York Judge Analisa Torres ruled that programmatic sales of XRP did not violate securities laws, but that direct sales to institutional investors were considered securities.
The closing of the case fueled speculation that major investment firms, particularly BlackRock, might launch spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs). However, BlackRock made it clear in its statement that it has no plans for an ETF for XRP or Solana (SOL).
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart said that if BlackRock wanted to list an XRP or SOL ETF, it could have already done so.
Companies like ProShares, 21Shares, Canary, and Bitwise have already filed XRP ETF applications with the SEC. In June, Bloomberg analysts had raised the probability of spot XRP, Dogecoin, and Cardano ETF approval to 90% by the end of the year.
However, Alexander Blume, CEO of Two Prime Digital Assets, called these expectations “overly optimistic,” noting that XRP’s market capitalization is less than half that of Ethereum. Vivian Fang, a finance professor at Indiana University, said that ETFs for public blockchain-based altcoins like Solana are more likely to precede a dedicated fund for Ripple.
*This is not investment advice.