Ripple said the SEC would abandon its appeal, but the filing had not arrived

Ripple Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse announced on March 19, 2025 that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission would abandon its appeal in the agency’s long-running enforcement case against the company.

The announcement was consequential because the appeal challenged one of the cryptocurrency industry’s most closely watched court decisions. It also prompted an immediate reaction in XRP markets. But the procedural status required care: Ripple was the source of the news, the SEC had not issued a public confirmation, and the Second Circuit docket did not yet record a dismissal on March 19.

Ripple’s own cross-appeal also remained unresolved. The verified event was therefore a company announcement about the SEC’s intended course—not a court order formally ending every remaining part of the litigation.

The judgment under appeal

The SEC sued Ripple, Garlinghouse and Executive Chairman Christian Larsen on December 22, 2020, alleging unregistered offers and sales of securities involving XRP.

On July 13, 2023, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres issued a transaction-specific summary-judgment decision. The court held that Ripple’s institutional XRP sales constituted unregistered offers and sales of investment contracts. It reached a different conclusion for Ripple’s programmatic sales through digital-asset exchanges, where buyers generally did not know they were purchasing XRP from Ripple.

That distinction mattered beyond one token. The decision rejected the idea that every disposition of the same digital asset necessarily received identical treatment under the investment-contract analysis. It was not, however, a blanket ruling that XRP could never be involved in a securities transaction.

On August 7, 2024, the district court entered final judgment imposing a permanent injunction against further Section 5 violations and a civil penalty of $125,035,150. The SEC appealed, and Ripple filed a cross-appeal. Those competing appeals meant the litigation remained active when Garlinghouse made the March 19 announcement.

What markets could verify

Ripple’s dated statement said the SEC would drop its appeal and presented the development as a victory for both the company and the wider cryptocurrency industry. Reuters reported the announcement as a statement from Ripple and Garlinghouse rather than as an independently published SEC action.

The Block reported that XRP rose more than 8% after Garlinghouse’s post and traded above $2.50 before giving back part of the move. That observation came from The Block’s price page during its March 19 reporting window. It was an intraday, provider-specific reading—not a regulated closing auction, consolidated global price or complete daily return. XRP traded continuously across multiple exchanges and currency pairs, so the exact percentage and price depended on venue, quote asset and timestamp.

The reaction nevertheless showed why the announcement mattered institutionally. Removing the SEC’s appeal would reduce the risk that the programmatic-sales portion of the 2023 ruling might be reversed. It would not erase the institutional-sales finding, dissolve the injunction, cancel the civil penalty or automatically determine how other tokens and transactions should be classified.

Later confirmation

Later records clarify, but do not change, what was knowable on March 19. On August 7, 2025, the SEC announced that the parties had filed a joint stipulation dismissing both the SEC’s appeal and Ripple’s cross-appeal. The agency said the August 2024 final judgment—including the $125,035,150 penalty and injunction—would remain in effect.

That later filing confirmed the eventual withdrawal while underscoring the distinction that applied on March 19, 2025: Ripple had announced the intended outcome, but the legal process had not yet produced a dismissal.