SEC Appeal in Ripple Lawsuit Draws Speculation as Deadlines Scrutinized

The ongoing legal battle between Ripple Labs and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has taken a new turn, with fresh discussions arising around the timing of the SEC’s latest appeal filing. 

Last week, the SEC submitted a Civil Appeal Pre-Argument Statement (Form C) as part of its case against Ripple, sparking debate within the XRP community over the implications of the filing dates. Observers noted that while the SEC dated the form October 16, the court marked it as received on October 17, leading to questions about potential effects on the appeal process timeline. 

However, former SEC official Marc Fagel has weighed in, downplaying concerns. Fagel stated that the discrepancy between the dates is unlikely to impact the appeal’s progress, emphasizing that the SEC’s submission was effective on time.

Or to put it another way–if a lawyer files something early, it's not like all the other deadlines move up in response. File on day 1 or day 14, the opposing brief is still due the same date; the hearing is the same date; etc. Nothing is delayed & nobody is prejudiced by waiting.

— Marc Fagel (@Marc_Fagel) October 19, 2024

Fagel noted that:

 “They pulled together the materials Wednesday morning (as the evidence shows); why it took so long for it to show up on the docket nobody quite understands, but it’s irrelevant,” 

The SEC’s appeal remains focused on Ripple’s XRP sales through exchanges, as well as the company’s distribution of XRP to employees and other recipients.

DOGE and SHIB Surge in Popularity Amidst Bitcoin Rally

The memecoins such as Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) recorded five months of high social acceptance due to the summertime discussion surge. This is a shift in attention when Bitcoin has recently been acting very bullish, even peeking at the $69,000 mark and stirring rumors of it rising to $70,000.

Data from Santiment, an on-chain analytics firm, shows that the rise in social media discussions has led to notable price movements for these meme coins. Dogecoin, for instance, has gained approximately 30%, while Shiba Inu saw an 8% increase. 

👀 With the crowd anticipating Bitcoin's $70K breach soon, traders are doubling down on high leverage speculative meme coins, where their discussion rates are at their highest level in 5 months. Meanwhile, L2's like Arbitrum and Optimism are being ignored. Speculative coins can… pic.twitter.com/46wIXaoHZ7

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) October 18, 2024

The renewed attention on meme coins seems to be driven by traders reallocating profits from Bitcoin’s recent bullish run into more speculative altcoins, further fueling their market presence.

Institutional Bitcoin Investments Hit $2 Billion in a Week

On a broader scale, institutional interest in Bitcoin has also ramped up, with over $2 billion worth of the cryptocurrency purchased by Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) in the last seven days. 

According to a report by Arkham Intelligence, this marks the largest weekly inflow of Bitcoin since March, underscoring the growing confidence of institutional investors in the asset.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, took the lead, buying $1.14bn in bitcoin. Slower movers this week include Fidelity that added $319 million, ARK Invest that added $306 million and Bitwise that added $150 million. 

Bitcoin’s price earlier touched its record high of $73,797 in March, it became clear during the recent day institutional money pouring into crypto manifests a new phase of growth as the cryptocurrency strives to overcome the previous fall.