Stuart Alderoty Behind Crypto’s Biggest Court Victory
In July 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) looked poised to conquer the cryptocurrency space in the United States, closing in on a crucial judicial endorsement of its legal theory that digital assets themselves are investment contracts and offers and sales of cryptocurrencies are securities. Multi-billion-dollar enforcement actions based on this legal interpretation of the so-called Howey test had been filed by the Commission in federal courts against the biggest players in the industry — Coinbase, Kraken, Binance. Kraken had already settled one case with the SEC, and Coinbase and Binance were gearing up to fight theirs.
But Ripple had been on the front lines of this legal battle longer than anyone. In December 2020,…
