Ripple Labs is taking a victory lap after XRP ends up firmly back in the mainstream

Ripple Labs’ XRP, the native crypto of its XRP Ledger, is accumulating wins. 

XRP shot up over 30% on Friday to $1.62, a three-year high, following SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s resignation announcement. By Monday morning, XRP had given up some of its gains but is still hovering around $1.44 at this writing. It’s quite a comeback for XRP, as a yearslong SEC lawsuit against Ripple hurt its trajectory and had the coin delisted from several platforms. 

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse shared this sweet taste of victory on X after a protracted legal battle with Gensler.

XRP is up nearly 35% in the past week and 148% in the past two weeks, on track with the crypto rally at large, CoinGecko data shows.

There are other drivers of this bull run. , for example, recently listed XRP, underscoring the confidence in the asset. (Sherwood Media is an independent subsidiary of Robinhood Markets.) Coinbase had already relisted XRP for customers in New York in May, after relisting it for the rest of their customers in 2023. 

Rumors about partnerships, notably with cardano, and the developments of several XRP projects are also fueling the fire. Last month, Bitwise filed for an XRP exchange-traded fund, which if approved could boost the asset’s price, as we’ve seen with bitcoin ETFs. 

Ripple last month announced it’s launching its stablecoin, a crypto pegged to real-world assets, further broadening the scope of Ripple’s ecosystem.

XRP whales have recently been on a buying spree, underscoring the bullish sentiment around XRP, and an army of loyalists and fans have continued to HODL and support the coin.

“The most salient driver of XRP’s success is its dedicated community of token holders,” Brian Evans, of BDE Ventures, said. “XRP holders have been through a lot and they just haven’t given up.”

Diving into the Ripple-cardano partnership potential

Rumors began stirring in November after an AMA between cardano founder Charles Hoskinson and Ripple CTO David Schwartz, in which they alluded to a potential partnership.

“We can add amazing DeFi components to XRP,” Hoskinson said in a video. “They can add liquidity, a wonderful stablecoin layer [RLUSD], and bridges definitely. It would be super cool to get Midnight working with #XRP. We’re meeting with David Schwartz.”

Joe Endoso, president of Linqto Capital, said this partnership could be mutually beneficial as cardano’s DeFi capabilities and privacy-focused Midnight sidechain would complement Ripple’s extensive liquidity network and stablecoin infrastructure.

Cardano’s ada has shot up as well — 36% in the past week.

What’ll happen to Ripple’s complicated lawsuit with the new administration?

Ripple and XRP differ from many other crypto projects as Ripple is a centralized fintech company that developed the XRP payment system. XRP is a decentralized digital asset on a public blockchain. It means there were two customers for XRP: institutions, who could use it for fast, cheap cross-border payments, and retail investors, who could trade XRP via exchanges. 

The SEC sued Ripple in 2020, alleging that it sold XRP as an unregistered security. The yearslong legal battle garnered a lot of attention, partly because some saw it as the crystallization of the SEC and Gensler’s anti-crypto stance. It also stressed the lack of regulatory clarity for crypto, namely around the “Is it or is it not a security?” status. 

The first ruling didn’t answer that question, as in January 2023, the judge ruled that XRP was a security when Ripple sold it to institutional clients, but wasn’t a security when XRP sold to retail traders.

In August, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered Ripple to pay a $125 million civil penalty — a much lower sum than the $2 billion the SEC initially sought. But it didn’t end the legal saga. In October, the SEC appealed the decision, and later that month Ripple filed a “cross-appeal,” or an appeal to that appeal. 

Now experts say that with Gensler on his way out, a resolution is the most probable outcome for Ripple.

“Either a settlement will occur between now and the hearing in January or, if this does go to the courts, the SEC will not appeal the outcome of this cross appeal,” Peter Eberle, of Castle Funds, said. “There are no guarantees, but as things stand there is optimism that this suit will be resolved quickly.”

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy is a financial journalist who’s written for Dow Jones, The Financial Times Group, and Business Insider, among others.