U.S. Securities and Exchange (SEC) Commissioner Hester Pierce reportedly believes that the regulator will not get the outcome it’s looking for in its lawsuit against Ripple over the $XRP token.

The SEC’s  lawsuit against Ripple and two of its executives alleges they “raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering.” It negatively impacted the price of XRP, as after the lawsuit was announced most cryptocurrency exchanges started delisting the token to avoid any repercussions, affecting its liquidity.

Some exchanges, however, sided with Ripple on the lawsuit, arguing that the SEC’s move hurt XRP investors. Crypto exchange Uphold pointed out that the SEC’s goal is to protect consumers, and believes it’s hard to see “how a judgment rendering XRP essentially worthless and inflicting billions of dollars of losses on retail investors” would square with that goal.

Fox Business journalist Eleanor Terrett, citing an anonymous source close to the SEC, has said Peirce expressed privately she believes the SEC won’t get a favorable outcome from the lawsuit.

Peirce has in the past expressed concern over the SEC’s approach to the cryptocurrency space, to the point she is affectionately often referred to as “Crypto Mom” by the cryptocurrency community. Her outspoken pro-BTC stance has seen her call for regulatory clarity numerous times over the years.

Commenting on the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple, the fintech firm has itself said it “already affected countless innocent XRP retail holders with no connection to Ripple” and “muddied the waters for exchanges, market makers, and traders.” The company’s defense has been moving to argue the SEC failed to provide proper clarity on the matter.

Ripple’s lawyers, according to legal expert Jeremy Hogan, expect the lawsuit to be over sometime between August 26 and November 18 of this year.

Notably, XRP whale addresses holding over 10 million tokens or more have managed to accumulate close to 900 million $XRP, worth around $700 million at the time of writing, since December 2021 in the “second-largest” accumulation they have made over the last 5 years.

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The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.

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