Following a partial court victory in the United States, crypto company Ripple intends to stay focused on markets with clear regulations for the industry, including jurisdictions in Asia such as Singapore and Hong Kong. The U.S.-based blockchain firm also plans an expansion in the U.K. and Europe, according to media reports quoting Ripple executives.
Ripple Favors Regulated Markets as U.S. Continues to Deal With Crypto Platforms Individually
Ripple, the company behind the XRP cryptocurrency, plans to remain focused on markets governed by clear regulatory frameworks, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Saturday. The payment operator revealed its intentions after a court win against U.S. regulators who maintain a case-by-case approach in dealing with industry players, including separate legal actions against token issuers.
Last week, a U.S. judge ruled that Ripple’s XRP token does not constitute a security when sold on third-party exchanges, opening the way for XRP to be traded by retail investors. However, the court said that when sold by the company directly to institutional investors, it qualifies as a security which will be the subject of another trial.
The ruling is largely viewed as a setback for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which sued Ripple in 2020. This week, in a new filing for its lawsuit against Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon, the regulator told a U.S. federal court that some court decisions in the case against Ripple were wrong, signaling it’s going to appeal.
“While this is a huge win for Ripple, a huge win for the industry, we have to see if this moves the needle in terms of getting regulatory clarity, or if the SEC [is] going to continue with a ‘regulation by enforcement’ approach, which picks at individual tokens,” Ripple’s Asia-Pacific (APAC) Policy Director, Rahul Advani, told the SCMP on Tuesday. The following day, Ripple published a blog post in which its team stated:
Ripple’s pursuit of sound crypto regulation in the U.S. is far from concluded; in fact, this is just the beginning.
Lack of Regulatory Clarity Pushes Crypto Firms Away From the U.S.
Regulatory ambiguity regarding the status of crypto assets in the United States has turned many in the sector towards Asia, the newspaper noted. In May, APAC Managing Director for San Francisco-headquartered Ripple, Brooks Entwistle, told the publication that due to the SEC lawsuit, much of the company’s development has been happening outside the U.S., and in Asia in particular.
On the latter continent, Ripple has been involved in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s pilot program for central bank digital currency (CBDC). China’s special administrative region has been concentrating efforts on becoming a hub for crypto assets. Also in the region, Ripple obtained an in-principle approval for a payment license in Singapore through which go most of the remittances processed by the platform. Besides these two destinations, Japan has introduced crypto-specific regulations as well.
With the adoption of its Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) rules, the European Union became arguably the world’s first jurisdiction with a comprehensive crypto-regulatory framework. Ripple has applied for a payment institution license in Ireland, its Managing Director for Europe, Sendi Young, told DL news earlier this week. She also revealed that the blockchain firm had recently applied for registration with the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority, too, as part of its plan to “continue growing exponentially in this region.”
Do you expect other major U.S. crypto companies to shift their focus to other regions amid an ongoing regulatory clampdown in the United States? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.