Accesswire today issued a press release claiming that Ripple has ended its battle with the SEC. Stuart Alderoty– General Counsel for Ripple– promptly responded by calling the story false. Accesswire has since removed the story from their site.
What did the press release say?
Although the original link has been removed, the Accesswire article has been archived in advance. The story was titled “SEC vs. Ripple Legal Fight is Over” and claimed Ripple had announced that the SEC had dropped charges.
The lawsuit, which lasted more than ten months, was finally settled between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and cryptocurrency firm Ripple. The SEC has announced it would drop its charges.
The press release goes on to summarize the story of the legal fight between Ripple and the SEC. Last December, the SEC charged Ripple with offering $1.3B of unregistered securities to investors in the form of XRP.
Ripple hit back, claiming their assets were not securities, and called the lawsuit an attack on the entire crypto industry. They even hired Mary Jo White– a former SEC Chair– to come to their defense.
After “10 months of intense battle,” today’s press release claimed that the XRP ledger could not be rated as safe using the Howie test. It even claimed that this new “development” would bring confidence to the entire crypto industry and encourage exchanges to finally re-list their coin. He also cited support from other officials for Ripple, including that of former US treasurer Rosie Rios.
The release was later picked up by Yahoo Finance and shared by other users through Twitter, who expressed immediate skepticism. It was then that Ripple’s attorney general got wind of it and responded to the article saying that is wrong.
Both Yahoo Finance and AccessWire have since removed the press release from their sites.
Overly optimistic fake news
Recent history reflects another fake press release from earlier this month. Walmart had allegedly planned to start accepting Litecoin (LTC) payments. The story was quickly debunked – but not before it put the cryptomarkets in a turbulent turn.
Alas, Walmart is yet to adopt crypto payments, and Ripple is still in hot legal water. Recently, a federal judge denied Ripple permission to access the crypto transaction history records of SEC members.
