Ripple-SEC Fight Continues: XRP to Restart Trading on Japanese Exchange
The international payment solutions firm, Ripple, experienced some respite in its ongoing battle with the American Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). E-commerce firm Rakuten announced that it will resume trading on Ripple’s native token XRP.
Rakuten’s Stance
On September 8, Rakuten Wallet Exchange confirmed that it will begin trading in XRP. Last year on Christmas Eve the exchange firm had temporarily suspended XRP trading. The reason stemmed from Ripple’s legal battle with the American Securities and Exchange Commission.
Initially doubtful of XRP’s liquidity, Rakuten now believes that liquidity can be guaranteed. Now the exchange firm can guarantee a stable delivery of price for its XRP users. However, Rakuten also advised its customers to be wary of the volatility inherent to the crypto market and understand the risks before investing.
Ripple vs. SEC
According to the SEC, Ripple executives presented and sold XRP as an unregistered security. This is controversial because earlier the Japanese regulators had clarified that XRP was not a security (based on their calculations).
In Japan, XRP has enjoyed a lot of popularity primarily due its partnership with SBI. A domestic bank, SBI is also among Rakuten’s biggest rivals in the crypto industry. According to a twitter poll by Bitmax, a cryptocurrency trading platform, XRP is the second most popular crypto in Japan next to Bitcoin (BTC).
Ripple has won some small victories in recent months. But a major setback has hit the company. SEC is pushing for a motion which would force Ripple to give up access to many Slack messages sent by its employees. But Ripple could hit back by asking SEC to clarify its stance on other major altcoins, which includes Ethereum.
