Crypto lawyer and pro-XRP activist John Deaton has shared a number of predictions for the year 2023. The lawyer's predictions were, as expected, about the legal field, but interestingly one of them came true almost instantly. Let's take them in order.
Ripple, SEC and FTX
First of all, Deaton expressed his view that the lawsuit between Ripple and the U.S. Securities Commission would end in a judge's ruling. This view has upset the XRP community, a large percentage of whom are hoping for a settlement or a summary judgment to resolve the proceedings.
However, Deaton went on to clarify that a settlement is also possible after a decision has been made directly by the judge, thus eliminating the possibility of further appeal or the case going to a jury trial.
Some people are confused about my prediction that the Ripple case doesn’t settle until AFTER Judge Torres renders a decision. A settlement could occur after which would eliminate any potential jury trial and also eliminate any potential appeal. https://t.co/KnT6t8lwaa
— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) January 13, 2023
The lawyer's other two predictions concerned the Securities Commission directly. Thus, Deaton predicts that the investigation into Sam Bankman-Fried, the head of the infamous FTX exchange, will uncover a number of "dirty" details regarding his meetings with top SEC officials. As a result, the lawyer expects the current head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, to resign before the end of 2023.
Well, that escalated quickly
A self-fulfilling prophecy, however, was the second of Deaton's four predictions. When predicting lawsuits against cryptocurrency exchanges for selling cryptocurrencies that are unregistered securities, Deaton could hardly have thought how soon it would happen. This morning, the SEC filed charges against Gemini exchange and crypto broker Genesis for just those violations.
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