On May 19, defense attorney and former federal prosecutor James Filan, who has been closely monitoring the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) vs. Ripple case for the past several years, shared an update on the possible unseal of the Hinman documents in public access.
According to a tweet, the SEC and Ripple Labs have filed a "one-week extension of the joint letter until June 13, 2023, to file a public [REDACTED] version of the Crossover Motion for Summary Judgment and accompanying evidence, including the Hinman material." The Hinman documents relate to a speech given in 2018 by Bill Hinman, former director of the SEC's division of corporate finance. In his talk, Hinman expresses his views on Ether , should not be classified as securities. These documents contain the SEC' the s internal conversations and deliberations surrounding this particular speech.
Some members of the crypto community thought the joint petition was "weird." Attorney Fred Rispoli, who goes by the Twitter handle @freddyriz, responded to Filan's statement on Twitter; "This is strange to me. Both parties have discussed these amendments at length In the first place. Probably nothing more than writing Content, but it's just...weird. It makes me think that something has changed and there's a scramble going on behind the scenes." In an interview with CNBC on May 18, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that unclear regulations in the United States are likely to prompt more cryptocurrency companies to relocate abroad. Due to these regulatory uncertainties, Ripple itself is actively looking to hire and invest abroad.
Garlinghouse's comments to CNBC come days after Ripple acquired Swiss blockchain hosting firm Metaco for $250 million. The acquisition will allow Ripple to expand its enterprise services, including custody, issuance and settlement of tokenized assets. Ripple expects the institutional crypto custody market to reach $10 trillion By 2030, as many financial leaders plan to adopt crypto custody solutions in the coming years.
