Pro-Ripple lawyer, founder of Crypto-Law.US John Deaton, has commented on the tweet of top ETF Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas about the upcoming verdict of the court regarding the suit initiated by Grayscale against the U.S. securities regulator.
The subject of the lawsuit is the SEC refusing to allow Grayscale to convert its Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a BTC spot ETF, and the verdict of the court is expected today.
Deaton expects Grayscale to beat SEC
Grayscale spearheaded by CEO Michael Sonnenshein filed a legal complaint against the SEC in June last year after the regulator rejected their bid to turn GBTC into a full-scale Bitcoin spot ETF.
Back then, in an interview to CNBC, Sonnenshein stated that the regulatory agency was acting "arbitrary and capricious," since they had allowed several Bitcoin futures ETFs to launch, while the SEC rejected a spot Bitcoin ETF on the grounds that Grayscale's bid allegedly did not take into account various concerns about that type of ETF, including ways to prevent manipulations in this market.
The CEO added that the SEC is discriminating against companies that are filing for BTC spot ETFs.
John Deaton commented on the post by Balchunas, stating that he will be on the lookout for a decision on the Graycale-SEC issue this week. Should Grayscale win, it is likely to give crypto big momentum — even greater than it is showing now.
The founder of Crypto-Law.US admitted that fighting "arbitrary and capricious" can be a hard job ("a high and difficult standard to meet"), but he has always believed that the SEC has a high chance of losing should some crypto company stand up to it in regard to its position on Bitcoin spot ETFs.
Be on the lookout today or Friday for a potential decision. This should hopefully give Crypto even more momentum. Even though “arbitrary and capricious” is a high and difficult standard to meet, I’ve always maintained the SEC will lose if someone fought back regarding a spot #BTC… https://t.co/WEjs7ohHqE
— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) August 15, 2023
In the current circumstance, Deaton believes, it will be surprising should the SEC win this case.
SEC partly loses Ripple case, makes appeal
As reported by U.Today earlier, Judge Analisa Torres issued a verdict regarding the SEC-Ripple case. She qualified Ripple's retail XRP sales as nonsecurities, but the company's XRP sales to financial institutions were considered security sales.
Ripple presented it as a major win for the crypto community. Many top exchanges began to relist XRP, and the token's price went up.
However, the SEC is not going to give in so easily, and it announced it is making an appeal related to the "programmatic" sales of XRP made by Ripple, as well as XRP sales made through crypto exchanges.
Arman Shirinyan
Alex Dovbnya
