Former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) litigator Linda Steward recently predicted that the Ripple case could go all the way to the Supreme Court in order to determine what makes a crypto asset a security, Fortune reports.
Steward, who was recently debating some blockchain lawyers at a Columbia Business School event, said that the agency views the sales and offers of tokens as securities, but this does not apply to the underlying asset.
As reported by U.Today, Garlinghouse previously said that he was ready to take the fight over XRP to the Supreme Court. "We are in it till the end," he stressed.
Despite scoring a partial victory against the SEC last July, Ripple is still facing massive fines from the SEC. Moreover, the regulatory agency is expected to appeal the 2023 ruling, according to which the secondary sales of the XRP tokens did not constitute security offerings.
Last November, Stuart Alderoty, Ripple's top lawyer, noted that the Supreme Court had repeatedly ruled against the SEC over the past few years.
Will it be Coinbase?
The Coinbase case is another candidate that could make it to the Supreme Court, according to Steward.
Steward, who was involved in the SEC's litigation against FTX, Ripple, and Terra, parted ways with the regulatory agency in February to join prominent international law firm White & Case.
She left the agency when the SEC was in the middle of making its case against dismissing the lawsuit against Coinbase. As reported by U.Today, U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Polk Failla eventually sided with the agency in late March.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
