Ripple’s trial begins on February 22nd

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The Southern District Court of New York has scheduled Ripple’s initial pretrial conference for 10 am on February 22nd. A pretrial conference is when both parties involved in the case present and review the evidence and clarify the issues in dispute. A filing from Judge Analisa Torres reveals that the conference will take place via video call and that both parties should submit a joint letter that contains:

“(1) a brief description of the case, including the factual and legal bases for the claim(s) and defense(s), (2) any contemplated motions and (3) the prospect for settlement,”

By February 15. 

Ripple vs. The SEC

On December 22nd, the SEC announced that they had sued Ripple Labs Inc, the company that created XRP, as well as Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen, for conducting a $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering. 

Ripple actually tried to front-run this news and made the announcement themselves via an article in Fortune; however, their efforts did little to nothing in terms of preventing the onslaught on XRP.

Since December 22nd, several digital currency exchanges and OTC desks–including Coinbase, Bittrex, and Genesis–announced that they would be suspending and terminating support for XRP trading pairs. 

All of the negative news around Ripple has created a snowball effect, or rather, set off an avalanche in XRP markets. Since December 21st–when the Fortune article that mentioned that Ripple would be sued by the SEC was published–Ripple’s market cap has plummeted by roughly 52%. The price of Ripple has dropped from $0.49 to $0.22. And Ripple has lost its third-ranked position on the top 10 digital currencies by market cap.

What’s next for Ripple?

You can expect to see even more digital currency exchanges and OTC desks halt their XRP-related service offerings until there is more clarity around Ripple’s court battle. Unless Ripple settles with the SEC, the outcome of the case most likely won’t be in Ripple’s favor. The SEC has had nearly 8 years to build up a case against Ripple and all of the evidence is there; unless both parties settle, Ripple has been caught red-handed.