- According to Amanda Tuminelli, chief legal officer, cryptocurrency might require Supreme Court action.
- The opinion is expressed in the context of divergent district courts’ classification decisions regarding cryptocurrency assets.
- Experts speculate that the XRP winning decision may be overturned by a higher court.
Market participants for cryptocurrencies are still demanding unambiguous regulations from US authorities, especially the SEC, which is notorious for accusing cryptocurrencies of breaking federal security laws.
When U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres decided against the SEC in July 2023, ruling that XRP is not a security, it was a major turning point. On the question of whether cryptocurrency assets may be classified as securities, the SEC recently prevailed over cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN).
Specifically, U.S. District Judge Katherine Failla decided that tokens offered on platforms such as Coinbase are investment contracts, siding with the SEC. Judge Torres, however, disapproved of this viewpoint in the XRP case. According to her decision, these transactions don’t qualify as investment contracts because they happen through blind bid/ask deals.
There have been rumors that a higher court may overturn the XRP win finding as a result of these conflicting decisions from two federal courts in the United States. This idea was recently brought up by FOX Business Network senior correspondent Charles Gasparino, who cited securities lawyers. Other well-known attorneys in the area, however, strongly disagreed with the viewpoint.
Because of these ambiguities, there has been conjecture that the cryptocurrency sector could need to petition the US Supreme Court to obtain clarification on the proper classification of virtual assets. In a podcast with Tony Edward, Amanda Tuminelli, the DeFi Education Fund’s Chief Legal Officer, offered her perspective on the topic.
Tuminelli predicts that the case will probably end up before the Supreme Court. She noted that a split in the circuit would result if the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals deviates from the Second Circuit’s ruling. The Supreme Court usually settles the dispute in such a case.
In addition, the legal expert clarified that if appeals take place in various areas and produce contradictory results, that would be the quickest path for the cases to get to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court must step in and issue a final decision in light of this development.