The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) caused a surge in XRP demand in the crypto market over the weekend, ahead of the US elections. On October 20, the SEC appealed against the Ripple case ruling which triggered a demand for XRP pushing the token towards its high point.
The case is related to a 2023 ruling where the court underlined that XRP tokens can’t be subjected to securities laws as the cryptocurrency was not a security. However, SEC appealed against the ruling earlier in October this year seeking damages worth $2 billion challenging the court order of asking Ripple to pay only $125 million penalty. This caused a 11% decline in XRP on October 3.
But now when the US SEC has appealed further, XRP has gained 0.30% in the last 24 hours and is trading at $0.5457 level with a market capitalization of $30.96 billion and a trading volume of $1.32 billion. Since, the SEC’s decision to reappeal against Ripple, the trading volume of XRP has increased nearly 107%, showcasing a renewed interest in the cryptocurrency which is pushing the demand.
This comes at a time when Tesla CEO Elon Musk spoke about XRP for the first time, giving a guarded response to an audience question about the digital asset's usage by financial institutes in the future.
At present, the best SEC can hope for is a remand which will send the case back to Judge Analisa Torres, revealed Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty. Earlier in last year, the SEC filed an Interlocutory Motion against Ripple, asking for permission to appeal against the Programmatic Sales of XRP ruling which was dismissed by Torres later in 2023.
When SEC submitted the Appeal Pre-Argument Statement on October 17, it sparked a boom in XRP which traded at $0.5668 before going down. There is a potential chance of XRP delisting by crypto exchanges in the US if the SEC is successful in its attempt of overturning the programmatic sales ruling. But the broader concern is that it will have an affect on other crypto cases like those against Binance and Coinbase.
On October 20, XRP recovered from its 0.58% loss in the earlier session to trade at $0.5680, gaining 0.70%, the first time the token close above the $0.55 level after October 1 when SEC filed the Notice of the Appeal. The cryptocurrency could eye for the $0.9327 mark if the SEC’s Appeal Pre-Argument Statement gets rejected. However, the token’s value can go down to $0.50 if the court upholds the Commission’s arguments.