For four years, the legal battle between Ripple Labs and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dragged on until the presiding New York judge finally delivered a landmark ruling: Ripple must pay a fine of $125 million.

"The SEC's claim for damages [...] is granted in part and denied in part," states the court document signed by US District Judge Analisa Torres. Ripple's management exuberantly celebrates the ruling as a victory over the SEC, as the latter had initially demanded a total fine of $2 billion against the company behind the XRP token. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expressed his excitement in a new X-post: "This is a victory for Ripple, the industry, and the rule of law. The SEC's resistance against the entire XRP community has been broken." Just last week, he had harshly criticized SEC Chief Gary Gensler, accusing his agency of "hypocrisy." The securities regulator was pursuing "a political agenda and/or malicious litigation tactics," Garlinghouse claimed in his aggressive statement.

Ripple's Victory: Implications for the Crypto Space and SEC's Future

Ripple already achieved an important partial victory in the legal dispute in July 2023: Judge Torres ruled at that time that XRP is not a security in the context of trades by individual investors. However, the XRP token must be considered a security when sold to institutional investors.This specific point was the focus of the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple Labs. Although the imposed fine is still significantly higher than the $10 million proposed by Ripple itself, the SEC's anti-crypto campaign appears to be gradually failing."The SEC's smear campaign against us is finally over. Let's all hope this ends this government's war against crypto," commented Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen on the ruling in an X-post. Just in October, the SEC had filed to dismiss its lawsuit against Ripple CEO Garlinghouse and Larsen, whom they had accused of participating in "illegal securities sales."The court ruling is likely to provide both with personal satisfaction. For SEC Chief Gary Gensler, however, the situation is becoming more precarious – recently, Donald Trump promised to fire him on the first day of his presidency in the event of a Republican election victory.