Ripple Labs and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have jointly requested a pause in their respective appeals to finalize a potential settlement, per a motion filed on Thursday.
The filing signals a possible end to a high-profile dispute that has gripped the payments upstart industry since December 2020 for its sale of XRP tokens, which the SEC alleged were unregistered securities.
The case has been a focal point for debates over the regulatory status of cryptocurrencies in the United States, with Ripple arguing that XRP is a currency, not a security, and thus outside the SEC’s jurisdiction.
Ripple and the SEC have reached an “agreement in principle” to resolve all outstanding issues, per a post shared by attorney James Filan.
This includes not only the SEC’s appeal of the district court’s final judgment but also Ripple’s cross-appeal and the claims against Ripple founders Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen.
The motion requests that the court hold the appeals process in abeyance — effectively pausing it — while the parties hammer out the final terms of the settlement, which still requires formal approval from the SEC’s commissioners.
This follows a similar request from the SEC and Gemini in early April, where the two parties requested the court approve a two-month pause to finalize a deal to close their long-running legal dispute over Gemini’s Earn program.