The Hush on the XRP Legal Case - Insider Knowledge Lawyers Hold Regarding Its Silence
In a significant development, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has completed the internal vote to abandon its appeal in the XRP lawsuit by August 7, 2025. This decision was made official on the same day when the SEC and Ripple jointly filed a dismissal of all appeals with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, marking the end of the appellate process.
The timing of the internal SEC vote was crucial, with a former SEC lawyer predicting that the vote would be completed before August 15, 2025. On August 7, both parties filed a joint stipulation of dismissal, confirming that the SEC had completed its internal procedures necessary to drop the appeal. Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer also confirmed the end of appeals on the same day.
The dismissal of the appeal means that the $125 million penalty would be released to the US Treasury, and the lifting of the injunction would end the one remaining appeal preventing XRP's legal status from crystallizing.
The XRP lawsuit has been quiet since July 2023, with little appetite for prolonging a fight that the new SEC chair, Paul Atkins, has publicly framed as regulatory overreach. Atkins declared in an August 4 X post that the commission would work on a rulemaking agenda to replace the prior regulation-by-enforcement strategy.
Marc Fagel, a former SEC San Francisco Regional Director, stated that the case is stalled on a single mechanical step: waiting for another internal vote. If the Commission votes in the coming days, dismissal notices would be filed almost immediately. Bill Morgan, a pro-XRP lawyer, has questioned whether Atkins can get the SEC commissioners to vote to dismiss the appeal.
It is important to note that the SEC's appeal remains technically alive, leaving the judgment non-final and the injunction in place. However, Judge Analisa Torres's rejection of the negotiated injunction necessitates a second formal vote from the SEC commissioners.
The agency's posture toward crypto changed sharply after President Donald Trump elevated former commissioner Paul Atkins to the chair. The upcoming status report is not a hard deadline to abandon the appeal; it requires each party to declare whether further briefing is necessary.
At press time, XRP traded at $3.02. The Senate's August recess and the still-pending CLARITY Act have no impact on the SEC's purely administrative process. Ripple withdrew its cross-appeal in June 2025.
Fagel predicts that the SEC will file to dismiss the appeal as soon as the commissioners vote to do so. Judge Torres found that programmatic sales of XRP on exchanges did not constitute securities transactions, while institutional sales did.
In October 2024, both sides noticed appeals. If the SEC remains divided or if staff review drags, the agency can seek another sixty-day extension. However, with the internal vote now complete, the end of the XRP vs. SEC appeal battle seems imminent.
Investors may see changes in the XRP market as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has completed its internal vote to dismiss the appeal in the XRP lawsuit, which would release the $125 million penalty to the US Treasury and end the injunction preventing XRP's legal status from crystallizing. The timing of the internal vote and the filing of the joint stipulation of dismissal on August 7, 2025, were crucial in moving towards the end of the appellate process.
