As you probably know by now, the battle between the US SEC and Ripple has been intensifying this year.
It’s been just revealed that the legal counsel of the US SEC argued that XRP is nothing like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
During a recent hearing in the SEC’s case against Ripple in which the regulatory agency accuses the digital payments firm of illegally selling unauthorized securities in the form of XRP, it’s been revealed that legal counsel Jorge Tenreiro argued that XRP is dissimilar to the two most important crypto assets which have already been cleared by the SEC.
He also said that XRP is backed by a knowable and singular body, unlike BTC and ETH.
XRP vs BTC and ETH
“Mr Solomon (Ripple’s general counsel) tries to say that ‘we are no different than Bitcoin and Ether.’ As Ripple’s own lawyers told them, you are not like Bitcoin because you are one entity that has created these assets. That is fundamentally different.”
The lawyer also said that even if the company tried to find a use case for its XRP token, they have not been able to prove that the token has any utility.
“We dispute whether this utility actually exists, your honor. But the point is: even if it did exist, Ripple and the defendants’ efforts to develop a use for XRP is what makes XRP security.”
The online publication the Daily Hodl also noted that Judge Sarah Netburn, the presiding official in the case, said this about the difference between BTC and ETH.
“My understanding of XRP is that not only does it have a currency value, but it also has a utility, and that utility distinguishes it from Bitcoin and Ether.”
Ripple’s general counsel replied that XRP is different from BTC and ETH, and it does have use cases.
“XRP also has developed a number of use cases, and these started very early in the process, which is why its so baffling that the SEC has charged this long-running scheme from 2013 to the present because XRP for example has a product called On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) that is used to assist financial institutions in having seamless and less costly transactions in key corridors…”
