The long-awaited unsealing of the Hinman documents this week had the potential to significantly impact the price of $XRP, a popular digital asset that’s at the center of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) case against Ripple labs.
In a 2018 address, William Hinman, the then-head of the SEC’s finance division, effectively declared that Ether ($ETH) was not a security, citing its “sufficient decentralization.” The sought-after documents pertain to this very speech, and as soon as the speech materials were made public the price of XRP surged this week.
However, the glow of this success was short-lived. As of the time of writing, XRP was primarily bathed in red, according to data from CryptoCompare. XRP is at the time of writing trading at $0.504 after losing 3.8% of its value in the last 24-hour period.
The documents now reveal that Hinman said in emails that the SEC does not need to “see a need to regulate Ether, as it is currently offered, as a security.” Ripple has argued that Hinman’s remarks also mean that XRP itself shouldn’t be considered a security.
Ripple’s Chief Legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, has now called for an investigation into Hinman, as he claims the former SEC director seemingly ignored potential conflicts, and the SEC later touted the speech knowing it would further lead to confusion in the market.
Many in the community have expressed optimism about the files potentially supporting Ripple’s case, but the optimism seemingly faded quickly as the price of the cryptocurrency quickly started dropping.
As new details emerge, on-chain data shows that cryptocurrency ‘whales’ or large-scale investors spent an additional $170 million on XRP in the days preceding the release of the Hinman documents.
A chart from Santiment reveals that between June 10-13, whales with holdings of 1 million to 100 million purchased an additional 310 million XRP, well over $150 million.
Featured image via Pixabay.
