After years of legal wrangling that cast a long shadow over XRP, Ripple Labs and the Securities and Exchange Commission finally buried the hatchet. Both sides dropped their appeals in August 2025, which means a 2023 court decision now stands as the final word, clearing the fog that kept XRP off many U.S. trading platforms.
The Second Circuit’s nod to this joint dismissal put an end to a fight that kicked off back in December 2020. Back then, the SEC accused Ripple of raising over $1.3 billion through an illegal securities sale.
The core of this entire outcome rests on a judgment from U.S District Judge Analisa Torres in July 2023. She drew a sharp line in the sand, treating different XRP sales in completely different ways.
This judgment established that the XRP token itself isn’t a security. At the time of writing, it was priced at $2.94 after falling by over 17% in just over a month.
Source: TradingView
Once the main judgment was in, Ripple was handed a $125 million civil penalty for its institutional sales, a steep discount from the $2 billion the SEC originally wanted. While both the SEC and Ripple initially postured with appeals, they jointly decided to walk away in August 2025, ending the legal drama for good.
With Judge Torres’s decision locked in, the future for XRP might be very different.
The XRP Ledger (XRPL) is undergoing a major facelift, pushing beyond its payment-focused roots to compete in the bustling arena of decentralized finance (DeFi). This shift is being powered by three big upgrades – A built-in Automated Market Maker (AMM), a sidechain that speaks Ethereum’s language, and a unique approach to smart contracts called “Hooks.”
Now that the SEC lawsuit is in the rearview mirror, institutional investors are finally giving XRP a serious look. But it’s playing a tough game of catch-up with market darlings Bitcoin and Ethereum. While the legal win and the buzz around potential ETFs are turning heads, old worries about the coin’s centralization and market readiness haven’t vanished.
A poll from early 2025 suggested over a third of institutional players now hold some XRP. The end of the SEC case in August 2025 was the green light many were waiting for, confirming XRP wasn’t a security when traded on exchanges. That confidence has triggered a race to file for spot XRP ETFs from heavyweights like Grayscale and Bitwise, with everyone watching for an SEC verdict by October 2025. If approved, analysts think these funds could pull in billions of institutional dollars.
Despite the recent momentum, XRP isn’t in the same league as Bitcoin or Ethereum for big investors. The top two coins have a massive head start for a few key reasons –
If XRP wants a seat at the main table with the institutional giants, it needs to shake off the last of its legal baggage, prove its utility with real-world data, and inspire the creation of a more mature market around it.
The SEC’s decision on the ETFs will show whether XRP’s legal victory can translate into a real Wall Street welcome.
Source: Polymarket
The XRP Ledger (XRPL) is broadening its horizons, moving from its original mission of fixing cross-border payments to chasing massive opportunities in tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), decentralized finance (DeFi), and NFTs.
These new ventures are designed to make the network more useful and, in turn, increase the value of XRP itself.
The XRPL is making a serious play for the RWA market, a sector expected to be worth trillions. The ledger’s speed, low costs, and built-in features for compliance make it a great platform for managing digital versions of real-world items without needing bulky smart contracts. The goal is to connect the old world of finance with the new, making it possible to trade things that have always been hard to sell, like real estate or private equity.
A full-fledged DeFi scene is sprouting on the XRPL. A built-in automated market maker (AMM) is already up and running to boost trading liquidity. Ripple is also working on a DeFi platform for institutions that will include a special members-only exchange, a lending service, and a new type of token. The launch of an EVM-compatible sidechain in 2025 is a huge piece of this puzzle, designed to pull in developers and apps from the massive Ethereum community.
Thanks to a new standard called XLS-20, the XRPL can now handle NFTs directly. This native support means minting and trading NFTs on the ledger is faster, cheaper, and safer than on many other networks. It even includes creator-friendly features like automatically enforced royalties.
This big-picture expansion is about creating more reasons for people to use and hold XRP.
By transforming into an all-in-one financial hub, the XRPL is setting itself up to be a major player in the future of on-chain finance, which could create lasting demand for its native coin.