On February 27th, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commissioners gave the green light to dismiss the lawsuit against Coinbase.
Moreover, the lawsuit was dismissed ‘with prejudice,’ indicating that it cannot be revived by a new administration.
The decision was somewhat expected, as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had hinted at the likelihood of the case being dropped last week.
Presently, the SEC under the Trump administration has resolved or dropped legal disputes involving OpenSea, Robinhood, Unsiwap, Gemini, and Coinbase.
What’s the Latest on Ripple?
The lawsuit against MetaMask was also resolved last Thursday, awaiting approval from the SEC commissioners. Joseph Lubin, the CEO of Consensys, the entity behind MetaMask, announced,
“I am pleased to inform you that Consensys and the SEC have reached a preliminary agreement to dismiss the securities enforcement case related to MetaMask.”
Similar to Coinbase’s situation, the previous SEC leadership alleged that the Ethereum-based MetaMask wallet was offering unregistered securities and functioning as an unregistered broker-dealer.
February has been a hectic month for the SEC, with legal action against Binance, Justin Sun, and the TRON Foundation being put on hold. However, Ripple Labs stands out with the absence of updates. So, what comes next?
According to crypto attorney Jeremy Hogan, the Ripple lawsuit is intricate due to its advancement into judgment and appeal stages. He commented,
“The Ripple case is still complex due to the judgments involved. The Tron case was not as far ahead. It seems like Ripple’s case will take longer to resolve.”
Nevertheless, Ripple’s leadership remains ‘optimistic’ about a resolution in the foreseeable future. Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer, Stuart Alderoty, stated during an X Spaces session in late January,
“I trust that the new SEC administration acknowledges this, and I cautiously anticipate that by sometime in 2025, the case will be voluntarily dropped.”