SEC Seeks Ripple Settlement, Drops Helium Case
Some interesting moves from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday: they’ve just dropped their lawsuit against Helium developer Nova Labs and have also jointly requested with Ripple to hit pause on their appeal against the crypto company.
Let’s dive into the Helium situation first. The SEC has dismissed the legal action they initiated back in January against Nova Labs. The accusation? That Helium tokens were being issued as unregistered securities.
Understandably, Helium is pretty pleased about this, declaring it a victory. They announced, “Good news! We can now definitively say that all compatible Helium Hotspots and the way HNT, IOT, and MOBILE tokens are distributed through the Helium Network are officially not securities.”
Now, it’s worth remembering there’s more to the Helium story. Putting this legal win aside, it’s previously come to light that Helium was caught out for exaggerating claims about its partnerships with major advertisers. Plus, digging deeper, Forbes found that a significant chunk of its native tokens ended up in the hands of insiders.
And that’s not all – Protos even reported on how Helium’s founder, amidst all the chaos with FTX and Solana, decided to launch a professional racing team.
Switching gears to Ripple, they too are seeing a potential change in their long-running SEC battle. Ripple and the SEC jointly filed a motion on Thursday asking to temporarily halt the SEC’s appeal. The goal? To explore reaching a “negotiated resolution” instead. Remember, the original case from 2020 questioned whether Ripple’s XRP token should be classified as an unregistered security.
The Ripple case seemed to be nearing its end in 2023, with a
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So, why the sudden shift in the XRP case? Well, the chances of this pause request being granted seemed to jump up when the SEC’s former Chairman, Gary Gensler, stepped down, and signals emerged that the Trump administration might be looking to ease up on crypto regulations.
This move by the SEC to appeal pause fits into a broader trend we’re seeing: crypto companies facing regulatory scrutiny seem to be getting a bit of a breather, with cases being dropped or regulators showing more caution.
However, it’s not all smooth sailing for everyone in the crypto world. One case that’s still very much active is the US lawsuit against Do Kwon, the controversial founder of Terraform Labs. Despite talk of reduced crypto prosecutions, prosecutors are stating that the Department of Justice’s memo, aimed at lessening crypto prosecution, won’t impact the charges against Kwon.
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