Ripple lawsuit: Crypto lawyer presses for Hinman, Clayton testimony

• Pro Ripple lawyer stated that the SEC may have made a misstep by filing charges against Ripple CEO.
• Volume of XRP being traded declines, and development activity rises.

Despite seeing a positive result out of its lawsuits, the legal problems for Ripple[XRP] continue to pile on. Recently, the SEC filed aiding and abetting allegations against Ripple’s CEO.

Realistic or not, here’s XRP’s market cap in BTC’s terms

Opinions come in

However, pro-XRP attorney John Deaton asserted that the SEC made an error by filing aiding and abetting charges against Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse. Deaton emphasized that past testimony from former SEC officials Bill Hinman and Jay Clayton in the Ripple vs. SEC case could have classified XRP as a non-security, but the SEC deliberately ignored this for an extended time.

Hinman definitely gets to testify. Normally, you’d have no chance at being able
to subpoena a former Chairman for a trial. But here, the SEC stupidly chose to bring aiding and abetting charges against the CEO @bgarlinghouse. Ironically, it was Clayton who wanted to sue the…

— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) August 25, 2023

User Digital Asset Investor.XRP on Twitter suggested summoning a16z attorneys Lowell Ness and Chris Dixon, along with former SEC officials Clayton and Hinman, as initial witnesses in the legal battle.

Deaton agreed that Hinman’s testimony is crucial, but summoning a former SEC chair for trial is not feasible. Despite this, Deaton argues that the SEC’s decision to charge Garlinghouse was flawed, considering Clayton’s inclination to file complaints against executives on a personal basis without fraud.

Clayton’s role as a witness is pivotal, especially given his communication with Ripple’s CEO and CTO, during which Garlinghouse expressed Ripple’s predicament following Hinman’s speech. Notably, neither Clayton nor Hinman explicitly labeled XRP as a security.

Clarity from Clayton and Hinman could have saved time and expenses, potentially boosting crypto adoption. The SEC aims to reverse the decision despite Judge Analisa Torres ruling that XRP is not a security in specific cases.

State of XRP

It remains to be seen how the Ripple network could be impacted in the future. One positive aspect would be the rising development activity on Ripple. This suggested that new developments and improvements on the Ripple network could be expected.

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These factors could play a big role in attracting addresses towards the network and the token. At press time, XRP was trading at $0.527. The volume of XRP being traded had fallen in the last few weeks and had fallen to 544.6 million at the time of writing.

Traders were getting slightly skeptical in terms of XRP’s future. According to Coinglass’ data, the number of short positions taken against XRP had started to rise materially over the last few days.