Ripple’s SEC Waiver Heralds New Opportunities and an Era of Smart Regulation

 

Despite Yogi Berra’s sage observation that it is difficult to make predictions, “especially about the future,” I’m quite comfortable predicting that 2025 will be regarded as a consequential inflection point in the maturation and mainstreaming of the cryptocurrency industry. Not only did the GENIUS Act become law earlier this year, providing a crucial and long-awaited regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, but the Securities and Exchange Commission shifted its posture toward industry participants from adversarial and prosecutorial to collaborative and constructive.

This month, the SEC granted a waiver to Ripple Labs, citing good cause to lift its injunction for past securities violations, which restricted the company from raising private capital from investors without complete SEC registration. The SEC also withdrew its appeal (lodged during the Biden administration) against a 2023 ruling by Judge Analisa Torres, who determined that sales of XRP on public exchanges are not securities, while sales to institutional buyers are securities. Although the waiver doesn’t negate Judge Torres’ finding that sales of XRP to institutional investors are securities regulated by the SEC, it allows Ripple to sell its XRP to private investors, continue operations, and expand its business without the fundraising roadblock. 

The SEC’s retreat from aggressive enforcement—it also dropped cases against Coinbase, Kraken, and Binance—seems to confirm a desire to change the agency’s regulatory approach toward one that is more measured, collaborative, and rules-based. According to SEC Chair Paul Atkins, the agency is now free to focus on developing clear crypto regulations now that the Ripple case has been put to rest. That sentiment was echoed by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce on social media earlier this week, where she wrote that  “minds once occupied with litigation now can concentrate on creating a clear regulatory framework for crypto.”

Ripple Labs appears to be very much onboard with this new thinking. Certainly, investors have pushed XRP’s price to its highest valuations in 2025. With the appeal dropped and fundraising permitted, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse framed the latest developments as major victories for persistence. For Ripple and the industry more broadly, it heralds a new phase that favors regulatory clarity over confrontation, and that means plenty of opportunity for growing and mainstreaming the adoption of cryptocurrencies in the United States and beyond.