Tyler Winklevoss Suggests Oregon AG Should Be Impeached For Calling XRP An Unregistered Security In Coinbase Lawsuit
Tyler Winklevoss, co-founder of the Gemini digital asset exchange, has slammed Oregons Attorney General over his lawsuit against crypto giant Coinbase.
This lawsuit argues that Ripples XRP and other crypto tokens are unregistered securities under Oregon state laws.
Oregon AG Accuses Coinbase Of Violating Securities Laws
In an April 18 announcement, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said he had sued Coinbase for allegedly offering XRP and 30 other digital assets as unregistered securities in violation of state law. The Oregon Department of Justice stated that the new suit was part of an effort to fill what it described as a regulatory vacuum left by federal agencies in the Donald Trump regime.
States must fill enforcement vacuum being left by federal regulators who are abandoning these cases under the Trump administration, the department claimed.
Justin Slaughter, the vice president of regulatory affairs at crypto investment firm Paradigm, highlighted that the kitchen sink lawsuit claims a slate of digital assets are unregistered securities. The list of tokens mentioned includes popular altcoins, including Ripples XRP, Aave, Avalanche, Uniswap, and Near Protocol.
Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss has voiced concerns about the validity of the case, pointing to the recent federal court ruling that declared XRP a non-security.
XRPs Legal Status Unshaken
Ripple, the blockchain payments firm behind XRP, had been mired in a lawsuit with the US. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Ripple was slapped with a lawsuit in late 2020, with the SEC contending that the company raised $1.3 billion via an unregistered securities offering of the XRP cryptocurrency.
The case has been a focal point for debates over the regulatory status of digital assets in the United States, with Ripple arguing that XRP is a currency, not a security, and thus outside the SECs purview.
The SEC recently agreed to drop its appeal of U.S. District Court Judge Analisa Torres 2023 ruling that Ripples programmatic sales of XRP to retail exchanges did not violate federal securities laws. Torres found that only Ripples institutional sales violated securities laws, ordering Ripple to pay the $125 million fine.
Ripple and the SEC have since requested the court to pause the case to finalize a deal to close their long-running legal dispute. In a major victory for Ripple, the SEC will return the lions share of the $125M court-ordered fine paid by the firm last year, keeping just $50 million and returning the $75 million balance to Ripple.
Text source: ZyCrypto
