Can US investors use Wrapped XRP (wXRP) to trade the SEC v. Ripple lawsuit?

As is widely known among XRP investors and the crypto trading industry, US-based digital asset exchanges have delisted XRP to avoid being targeted by the Securities and Exchange Commission as the agency entered a court battle against Ripple.

Crypto trading platforms kept that decision even despite the “bombshells” by Judge Netburn described by attorney Jeremy Hogan last year, including when she questioned whether “everyone who sold XRP – including you and me – are selling illegal securities”, to which the SEC attorney Jorge Tenreiro replied by saying that, under Section 4 of the Securities Act, only Ripple and its affiliates (meaning employees, Hogan said) could be accused of illegal sales. According to that argument, exchanges could resume the trading of XRP.

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Park Bramhall, senior counsel at Lowenstein Sandler LLP, had a different perspective: “The fact that the SEC has apparently stated that parties other than Ripple and its affiliates can resell XRP under Section 4 of the Securities Act doesn’t mean that exchanges are free to relist XRP,” he told Coindesk at the time.

“What the SEC appears to be saying here is that, in its view, parties other than Ripple and its affiliates can rely on the exemption from registration provided under Section 4(a)(1) of the Securities Act for resales of XRP, and that exemption is only relevant if XRP is deemed to be a security.”

The truth of the matter is that XRP will likely remain delisted in the United States while the Ripple lawsuit lingers, but there might be a way in for US investors who look to trade the news stemming from the court battle in New York.

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Wrapped XRP (wXRP) has recently joined the Ethereum network. wXRP is a token pegged to XRP that can be used on blockchains other than XRP Ledger. The wrapped asset is exchangeable 1:1 with XRP held in reserve by a custodian that facilitates wrapping XRP and unwrapping wrapped XRP.

wXRP is a derivative product that is pegged to the digital asset that the SEC claims to be a security in what has been dubbed “the cryptocurrency lawsuit of the century”.

The outcome of the court case will have direct implications on Ripple and XRP, although these two words are not interchangeable. The precedent will likely dictate the course of the crypto ecosystem in the United States and potentially across the globe, given the country’s influence.

While investors outside the United States are free to trade XRP, that does not apply to US residents at the moment, but buying and selling Wrapped XRP would go under the scope of the CFTC as derivatives trading.

Ripple does not seem to be willing to give in to the SEC, so we’ll be likely following the case to the bitter end in August – September, according to attorney Jeremy Hogan.

As part of the Wrapped XRP rollout, Binance has completed the wXRP integration and has opened deposits for wXRP on Ethereum (ERC20). The crypto exchange will open withdrawal for wXRP on Ethereum Network (ERC20) on a later date.

wXRP deposits will be credited as XRP and it is ready for trading. Withdrawals of XRP on Ethereum Network (ERC20) will be wXRP.