SEC can’t keep up: Ripple and Bitnomial clap back!
Plus: Binance exec denied bail, sent to hospital
GM. Ready for your daily dose of crypto citrus? We’ve squeezed the market lemons into the perfect blend of insights with a twist of Web3 zest.
⚖️ A bunch of legal issues—Ripple submitted a cross-appeal against the SEC, Bitnomial sued the SEC over its claims that XRP futures are securities, and the SEC sued Cumberland, saying it’s an unregistered securities dealer.
🍊 News drops: Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan was denied bail, Uniswap launched the testnet for Unichain, Justin Sun became the Prime Minister of Liberland + more
🍍 Market flavor today
The Fear and Greed Index just took another dip down to 32, so we’re still hanging out in the “Fear” zone. And even though we’re almost halfway through Uptober, BTC isn’t playing along– it dropped to $59K yesterday, yet has now clawed its way back to $61K. A major factor behind this—the recent US inflation news (remember that from yesterday?)
On the brighter side, Bitcoin whales are making moves! 🐋 New whales are jumping in, and the veterans are scooping up BTC in the $54K to $68K range. Could this mean an upcoming pump? Well, with all this accumulation happening, it sure looks like they’re prepping for something big.
Keep your fins ready! 🌊
🤨 Who is Sue and why is she all over my feed today?
I hopped online today to get my daily dose of well-deserved screen time, and man, my feed’s blowin’ up with some drama. Gotta share it with y’all.
There’s this guy, Secily Commanderson, better known as SEC. He also goes by Securities and Exchange Commission, but idk, this one’s kinda weird to me, so let’s just stick with SEC.
Apparently, he’s beefin’ with this crypto bro named Ripley Labsmith—tho people call him Ripple Labs for short.
There’s also this girl, Sue, who keeps jumpin’ in the beef, and things are just wild out there. Btw, I have a theory that SEC has a crush on Sue, but that’s for another day.
Anyways, here’s the deal:
1/ SEC Sue(s) Ripple
We actually spoke about their story before, so here’s just a quick refresher:
- SEC Sue’d Ripple back in 2020 for allegedly selling unregistered securities through XRP;
- In 2023, the court ruled that XRP sold on public exchanges wasn’t a security, though early sales to institutional investors might’ve been;
- Ripple was ready to pay a $125M fine for the unregistered sales and be done with it.
That could’ve been the end of their four-year fight. But SEC wasn’t too happy with the outcome, so he decided to appeal the ruling. Ripple saw that, and went like: what. the.
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But he wasn’t gonna have NONE of that. Rippleboy decided to cross-appeal.😎 We still don’t know if they’re gonna fight about the fine or XRP’s classification, but more info should be comin’ soon.
2/ Bitnomial Sue(s) SEC over Ripple
And now, the Ripple/SEC beef is causin’ more waves. A Ripple effect, if you will.
Enter Bitnomial (his parents got creative with the name). He runs a crypto exchange that the CFTC approved for trading crypto futures. So, he applied to offer XRP futures contracts.
One night, he’s chillin’ at home with his wife and kids, and he gets a call. It’s SEC, saying, “yo, bro, XRP futures are actually securities, so you should’ve contacted me, not CFTC. If you want to offer them, you gotta register a a securities exchange.”
Bitnomial then stared into a wall for a while, confused. First off, why is SEC claiming XRP futures when they’re already regulated by the CFTC? And second, how can he list XRP futures when Ripple hasn’t even registered them as securities?
So, Bitnomial contacted Sue and took SEC to court, seeking the judge to declare that XRP futures aren’t securities.
3/ SEC Sue(s) Cumberland
Meanwhile, SEC also has an issue with this woman called Cumberland (her thing is eating cucumbers and listening to Timbaland).
According to Cumberland, she and SEC have been cool for at least five years, texting each other and whatnot. But now, SEC kinda made the whole situation awkward ’cause he got Sue involved in this.
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SEC filed a lawsuit against Cumberland with claims that she’s an unregistered securities dealer. He mentioned five tokens—Solana, Polygon, Cosmos, Algorand, and Filecoin—which he claims are securities that Cumberland handled without proper approval.
Cumberland then went on social media to argue back, saying that she actually did try registering as a broker-dealer in 2019 but was later told that only applied to Bitcoin and Ether—neither of which SEC even regulates! So, she’s calling BS on the whole thing and getting ready to fight back.
Overall, I don’t personally know any of these people, but they better chill out. But stay tuned ’cause this story is just heating up.
📰 News drops
❌ A Nigerian court denied Binance exec Tigran Gambaryan’s bail request despite his health issues and told the prison to send him to a hospital instead. The judge ruled his condition didn’t warrant letting him out of custody.
🦄 Uniswap launched the testnet for its own Layer-2 blockchain, Unichain. It’s set to offer faster, cheaper transactions and better cross-chain compatibility.
🌞 Tron founder Justin Sun is now the Prime Minister of Liberland—a self-declared sovereign micro-nation located between Croatia and Serbia. The cool part? The election ran on a decentralized blockchain system.
🔐 Just days before starting his seven-and-a-half-year sentence, former FTX exec Ryan Salame took to LinkedIn, joking, “I’m starting a new position as Inmate at FCI Cumberland!” LinkedIn users joined in with dark humor, with one saying, “From LinkedIn to LockedIn!”
🚕 Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed plans for self-driving robot cars meant for public transport. He showed off a few cars, bragging they were running without drivers—or even steering wheels.
