The legal battle between Ripple Labs and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) received a slightly different schedule update yesterday, according to for US Attorney and former federal prosecutor James K. Filan via Twitter. In fact, so far, no more deadlines have been scheduled. All documents and all reply briefs have been filed.
“Everything is brief. Now wait,” wrote Filan. From now on, it will be the judge Analisa Torres to make a decision based on all the arguments presented in court for more than two years.
As Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in a recent interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, no one knows how many months Torres will have to make a decision.
We expect a decision from the judge of course in 2023. You have no control over when the judge makes his decision. But I’m optimistic that in the next few single-digit months, we’ll be closed there.
Interestingly, the final document submitted on Wednesday once again sparked a heated debate. The SEC filed an objection to “Third Party A’s” request to redact all references to certain companies and crypto trading platform names.
Ripple’s letter caused an uproar in the XRP community. The fintech company has filed an objection to the filing of the declared entity as an “Investment Bank Declaration.”
This investment banker wants to hide his name from the public, as well as the name of his company and his position. The investment banker was one of several SEC advocates who filed an amicus brief last year in support of the agency’s motion for summary judgment.
Who’s Against Ripple?
Ripple wants the name of the mysterious investment banker disclosed. Ripple’s legal team urged Judge Torres not to allow the declarant to remain anonymous because he made the declaration and entered the case of his own free will.
However, an unidentified investment banker said disclosure increases the risk of “harassment.” This controversy over sealing has led the XRP community to speculate about who has an interest in supporting the SEC.
Attorney John Deaton, who represented XRP holders in an amicus brief in court, responded to speculation from Mr. Huber’s community members. The latter states that Mike Novogratz of Galaxy Digital is the hottest bet.
Deaton already similar view:
It will be interesting. He is a shareholder of Ripple so it can be anything. Not a bad guess because of the possibility of people who have convos with Ripple. If not, maybe someone from Tetragon.
But why Novogratz? It is known that he and Galaxy Digital own 1% of Ripple. Despite this, Galaxy Digital released its XRP product shortly after the SEC action against Ripple.
Presumably, the suspicion comes from a September 2021 memo written by Deaton. At the time, he explained the entanglements between the SEC, ConsenSys’ Joe Lubin, and Novogratz.
After Hinman’s speech, Lubin publicly predicted that Ethereum will be the only company platform to get a free pass from the SEC and that for others – especially Ripple – “the reckoning will come.” Deaton further wrote:
Mike Novogratz, Lubin’s roommate and major investor in Ether, predicted that just nine days before the speech that would be “a dollar for a donut” the SEC would declare ether not a security.
If you know Mike Novogratz, he cares a lot about public perception and credibility and he won’t come out and vouch for what the SEC is going to say unless he’s convinced by someone with personal knowledge.
Tetragon could be a good bet because the investment management group has sued Ripple once after the SEC filed a lawsuit to force a $175 million share buyback. However, Ripple won the case and it may have caused the SEC supporters.
At press time, the price stood at $0.3914, just below the key resistance zone on the 1-day chart.
Option image from NFTS.WTF, Chart from TradingView.com