John Deaton, XRP holders’ lawyer in the legal battle between Ripple Labs Inc. and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has called out Bill Hinman, the agency’s former Director of the Division of Corporation Finance. The callout hinges on how he has continued to gaslight the XRP ruling that states that the retail trading of the coin on secondary platforms is not a security.
John Deaton hot take
Reacting to the commentary from the Ondo Summit that Hinman participated in, the pro-crypto lawyer walked down memory lane. This was to highlight how the SEC official gave a free pass to Ethereum, a claim many in the XRP community see as true.
In his X post, Deaton pointed out that Hinman has always represented entities with deep ties to Ethereum.
He brought up the Hinman speech again as a big deal at the time to categorize Ethereum as non-security. This placed the coin at par with Bitcoin in its early days, a move that benefited mining companies like Canaan.
SOMEONE BOOK BILL AND ME ON A SHOW TOGETHER
Facts:
Hinman, connected to ETH in significant ways, including making millions as an ongoing profit sharing partner with people representing ETH and ETH companies, on June 14, 2018, gave a speech, declaring BTC & ETH non-securities.… https://t.co/wnwpCh4LnV
— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) February 8, 2025
Pointing out a series of proofs to show how biased he was while at the SEC, Deaton requested anyone in the industry to put him in a panel with Hinman. Despite Ondo Finance utilizing XRP Ledger for tokenization, community members flagged the gaslight of XRP at the summit by Hinman.
XRP thriving nonetheless
Despite the potential disregard for the security status of XRP, the coin is thriving at the moment.
Now ranked the fourth largest digital currency, the coin has maintained 366% growth in the past year. There are conversations about adding it to the national digital asset stockpile that the United States government is working on.
XRP also has the potential to benefit from the operational growth of the RLUSD stablecoin. With enough liquidity in its native ecosystem, XRP might find a fresh catalyst for growth.
In all, XRP remains an asset to watch in the market. Should the Ripple case be dismissed now that the U.S. SEC wants to close non-fraud crypto lawsuits, XRP may explode this year.
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