XRP Explodes After U.S. Court Delivers Crushing Blow to SEC Appeal

In a landmark ruling issued on July 8, 2025, Ripple Labs secured a major legal victory as a U.S. federal appeals court rejected the Securities and Exchange Commission’s latest attempt to classify XRP as a security. The decision, published early on July 9, reaffirmed a 2023 judgment that XRP does not constitute a security when traded on public exchanges by retail investors.

The ruling delivers a rare degree of legal clarity in the ongoing regulatory debate surrounding digital assets and has already triggered a surge in market optimism. Within hours, XRP’s price rose nearly eight percent.

The legal dispute between Ripple and the SEC began in December 2020 and has since become one of the most closely watched cases in U.S. crypto regulation. In July 2023, a district court found that XRP’s secondary market sales were not securities transactions. The SEC appealed that decision later in the year, arguing that it left loopholes in regulatory oversight.

However, the July 8 ruling by the appellate court rejected the SEC’s arguments outright, concluding that the agency had failed to present new or sufficient legal grounds to reverse the earlier decision.

XRP rallied immediately following the news, rising to $0.74 by the morning of July 9, marking its highest price in over a month. Major exchanges such as Coinbase and Binance reported a combined transaction volume of more than $1.2 billion in XRP during a single session.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse called the decision “a massive victory for fair regulation” and urged lawmakers to finalize clear legislative definitions for digital assets. Legal analysts across the financial sector reacted quickly, with JPMorgan issuing a client memo on July 9 stating that the ruling undermines the SEC’s standing in other pending crypto enforcement cases involving tokens like Solana, Cardano, and Polygon.

Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase, posted that the decision reinforces the importance of “responsible innovation” while constraining what he described as regulatory overreach.

Although the SEC technically retains the right to escalate the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, most legal observers consider such a move unlikely to succeed. The appellate court’s language was direct and unsympathetic to the SEC’s claims, making further litigation a high-risk and politically unappealing strategy.

For Ripple, the ruling is expected to accelerate its global expansion. The company is likely to deepen partnerships in Asia and the Middle East, where XRP is already being used for cross-border settlement. Countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and Japan have expressed renewed interest in blockchain-based remittance infrastructure, and Ripple is currently conducting pilot programs across the region.

The court’s decision also had ripple effects across the broader crypto market. On July 9, Cardano rose by 4 percent, Solana gained 3.6 percent, and other tokens including Algorand and Filecoin posted moderate advances. Traders view the ruling as a potential shift in how altcoins may be legally treated in the United States, particularly in the absence of definitive congressional action.

Recap:
On July 8, 2025, a U.S. federal court rejected the SEC’s appeal and upheld that XRP is not a security when traded on public exchanges. XRP surged on July 9 in response. The decision could impact other tokens under scrutiny and signals a major shift in crypto regulation.