Ripple’s Fight with SEC Faces New Twist as Trump Promotes Meme Coin
As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to be inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States on Monday, he made a surprising move by launching his own cryptocurrency, $TRUMP Coin. Despite Trump’s previous hesitance about cryptocurrencies, he expressed confidence that the United States will become the “crypto capital of the earth” once he returns to Washington.
The timing of the launch raised some eyebrows. Critics accuse Trump of using his incoming presidency to profit from the popularity of cryptocurrencies, particularly meme coins. However, some experts are watching how the move could impact ongoing legal battles in the cryptocurrency space, particularly the high-profile lawsuit between Ripple Labs and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Ripple Lawsuit: Will Trump’s $TRUMP Coin Impact the Case?
Attorney Bill Morgan recently discussed the impact of Trump’s actions on Ripple’s lawsuit. Morgan noted that Judge Torres’s appeal of Ripple’s fair notice defense now looks more promising. For context, the SEC has been taking legal action against Ripple, claiming that the company violated securities laws by selling XRP. However, Ripple argued that it did not explicitly notify that its XRP sales were subject to SEC registration requirements.
Morgan drew attention to Trump’s stance on cryptocurrencies and investment contracts. Although Trump issued and promoted the $TRUMP meme token, he believes that such tokens should not be classified as investment contracts requiring SEC registration. This is a key issue in Ripple’s lawsuit, with the SEC arguing that XRP should be considered a security, while Ripple maintains that it is a digital asset.
Given that Trump issued a speculative meme token without complying with the traditional regulatory framework that the SEC imposes on other tokens, Morgan questioned how the SEC v. Ripple case could proceed in this case . He said Ripple’s sale of XRP, like its promotion of $TRUMP, does not involve any post-sale obligations, a point of contention in the Ripple case.
