David Schwartz, the chief technology officer at San Francisco-based Ripple Labs giant has taken to X app to comment on the recent case of the American regulator SEC fining the maker of the popular Stoner Cats NFT series for $1 million.
Schwartz commented on a recent tweet by Stuart Alderoty, the chief legal officer at Ripple, who talked about the SEC issuing a fine to Stoner Cats 2 LLC. Alderoty seems to disagree with how easily the maker of the popular NFT collection agreed to pay that astounding USD sum as a fine without even trying to challenge the SEC in court, as did Ripple and Grayscale recently. He did admit, though, that he does not know all the facts of this particular case.
The Ripple CTO, commenting on that tweet, mentioned a "pyrrhic victory," which was achieved in three years. He believes that neither settling "for single digit millions," nor paying "double digit millions to get a pyrrhic victory in three years," should be seen as a win for anyone.
The community did not seem to notice anything; however, Schwartz here seems to be talking about the recent victory of Ripple Labs in court against the SEC.
An X app user provided a definition of what a Pyrrhic victory is and where this expression comes from, in case anyone did not know: it results in a "devastating toll on the victor" that is almost equal to being defeated.
The user wrote: "A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Such a victory negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress. The phrase originates from a quote from Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose triumph against the Romans in the Battle of Asculum in 279 BC destroyed much of his forces, forcing the end of his campaign."
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against Ripple in December 2020, before Gary Gensler, its present chief, was put on the position of its chairman.
The case lasted for three years, and only in mid-July this year, Judge Analisa Torress made a ruling in favor of Ripple Labs, stating that its secondary market XRP sales do not qualify as selling securities.
Now, the SEC has filed an appeal against that court decision. Ripple has already submitted a request that the court rejects this filing from the SEC. Still, the blockchain giant has spent tens of millions of U.S. dollars and three years to achieve that victory, but the battle is far from over.
Arman Shirinyan
Alex Dovbnya
