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  • XRP is up 25% amid speculations related to its longstanding case with the regulator.
  • According to experts, the verdict could bring about an ‘alt-season.’

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The longstanding case between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Ripple could come sooner than expected, with some users in the crypto community speculating the summary judgment could be made today, March 31.

The reason behind the hearsays could be the rising value of XRP, which is at the center of the $1.3 billion lawsuit. At the time of this report, the payment token native to the Ripple ecosystem was trading at $0.5346, representing an upsurge of 25% in the past week.

At the same time, open interest in XRP, which represents the number of contracts or commitments outstanding in futures and options trading, jumped to $800 million as of March 29, according to the analytics platform Coinglass.

The increasing open interest and surging prices, according to industry experts, mean that there is an influx of new funds into the blockchain. Besides, the final verdict expected from the US federal New York court could cause an ‘alt season,’ a term referring to a situation where altcoins outperform bitcoin, according to pundits.

Related lawsuits

Possibly tied to the upward momentum are the events around a recent lawsuit against Binance by the CFTC, where the regulator classified major altcoins as commodities, against the longstanding arguments by the SEC that they are securities.

In part, the direct quote of the filing reads: ‘‘Binance, under Zhao’s direction and control and with Lim’s willful and substantial assistance, has solicited and accepted orders, accepted property to margin, and operated a facility for the trading of futures, options, swaps, and leveraged retail commodity transactions involving digital assets that are commodities including (BTC), ether (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC).’’ By extension, the Ripple community is optimistic XRP could equally fall under commodities.

In a Thursday tweet, Ripple co-founder, Brad Garlinghouse, blasted the SEC for enforcing regulations by enforcement against the blockchain. In his previous statements, the SEC chair Gary Gensler said that all cryptocurrencies are securities except bitcoin.

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CryptoWhat
CryptoWhat was created in 2015 and has become one of the most trusted and well-respected sources of information on all things crypto. The blog's authors are dedicated to providing clear, concise, and jargon-free explanations of this complex technology, so that everyone can understand it.