After Ripple Labs Inc., a blockchain payments technology company, was hit with a $125m fine for civil penalties for selling XRP tokens to institutional investors, major cryptocurrencies rose on Thursday, with the company calling the result a victory for the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which had sought nearly $2bn in penalties. By the time of writing, bitcoin had risen by more than 4.5 per cent to more than $57,600, while the second-largest token, ether, had briefly risen by nearly 5 per cent. Both are still far below their levels of a week ago, when they fell by more than 20 per cent on Monday, the biggest fall since the collapse of FTX in 2022. XRP tokens rose 25 per cent after the ruling.
Ripple Labs was ordered to pay $125m in civil penalties by a federal judge for selling XRP tokens to institutional investors, a fraction of the penalties sought by the US regulator when it sued the company in 2020, alleging that it had raised money by selling digital tokens without registering them as securities, in breach of US securities law. The case has been closely watched because of its implications for the scope of the SEC’s regulatory powers. The regulator sought nearly $2bn in penalties, including more than $876m in disgorgement penalties and more than $198m in interest, and $876m in civil penalties.
In the meantime, global markets sold off further, reflecting concerns about the economic outlook and the escalation of the Middle East tensions, as well as worries about the potential failure of big bets on artificial intelligence.
“The market is still quite nervous after what happened earlier this week,” said Benjamin Celermajer, co-chief investment officer at Magnet Capital. “If confidence returns and people think the concerns have been overblown, I think many people will think the sell-off is overdone.”