Catenaa, Wednesday, July 02, 2025- XRP rallied Friday after Ripple Labs announced it will drop its cross-appeal in its long-running legal fight with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, signaling a potential close to the four-year dispute.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse confirmed that the firm will no longer pursue the appeal and said the SEC is expected to withdraw its own, ending uncertainty that has clouded XRP’s US prospects.
The move comes after a federal judge denied a joint request to reduce Ripple’s $125 million civil penalty over institutional XRP sales.
XRP jumped 3.36% to $2.18 after the announcement, reflecting renewed investor confidence. Ripple’s legal team reiterated that XRP’s status as not being a security remains unchanged, despite the court maintaining that Ripple’s institutional sales violated securities laws.
The SEC originally filed suit in December 2020, accusing Ripple of raising $1.3 billion through unregistered XRP sales. While a 2024 ruling cleared programmatic sales, the court upheld penalties for institutional sales.
Ripple had earlier described the penalty ruling as a partial victory after the SEC’s original $2 billion demand was sharply reduced.
Meanwhile, RippleX, the firm’s development arm, rolled out version 2.5.0 of the XRP Ledger, bringing major upgrades to token functionality and network efficiency.
The upgrade includes new escrow features for stablecoins and improved transaction bundling, driving daily active addresses from 35,000 to over 295,000.
