The US SEC moved to strike Ripple’s defenses following its suit in December, accusing the blockchain giant and its executives of selling unregistered securities. However, Ripple has responded to the motion to strike its pivotal “fair notice” defenses, labeling it as “meritless.”
Ripple says SEC’s motion to strike is meritless
In a letter to Federal Judge Analisa Torres, the company indicated that the anticipated SEC motion to strike was meritless. Ripple indicated that affirmative defenses striking is disfavoured in the Circuit, and the agency can’t meet the high burden of demonstrating that there is no question of law or fact remotely that might permit the defense to succeed. The blockchain giant has asked the Court not to set a joint briefing for its co-founder Chris Larsen’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s motion to dismiss the suit and the agency’s motion to strike.
If the SEC proceeds with the filing of the motion to strike, Ripple has asked the Court to set a briefing schedule that doesn’t coincide with the executive’s motion to dismiss since one doesn’t have a bearing on the other. Interestingly, SEC says that the company’s defenses are “legally improper” since it isn’t obligated to warn exchanges regarding Ripple’s violations whole in the process of an investigation.
Kraken joins crypto exchanges going public
Kraken exchange will go public in 2022 through a direct listing rather than through a SPAC merger. Fox Business reporter Charles Gasparino first revealed the news about the exchange’s intentions to go public, saying that Kraken might consider a traditional IPO or a SPAC merger. The company later clarified that it is too big for a SPAC merger, and it was only considering direct listing. This means the company will go into the market without the issuance of additional stocks.
There is a crypto exchange rush, and Kraken will join Coinbase, which is in the process of going live later this month through a direct listing. The listing will see a valuation of around $100 billion, which will be the largest market debut. On the other hand, the eToro trading platform is planning to go public through the SPAC route. Currently, Kraken is valued at $4 billion, but this could reach $20 billion in its next funding round under the right conditions.
NEM launches its Symbol platform after several delays
After almost four years of development, the Symbol platform is live on the mainnet. New Economic Movement launched the trading and security token management platform on March 17, 2021. The enterprise-grade proof-of-stake blockchain allows the creation of customized crypto assets with configurable characteristics acting as security tokens. Most importantly, it is an evolution of the original NEM blockchain that launched in March 2015.
David Shaw, NEM Group CEO, said that the Symbol Mainnet went live on March 17, 2021, which a date is marking a new beginning for NEM’s story. He said the Symbol shall be alongside NEM NIS1, thus making NEM a two-chain ecosystem.
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