Judge Analisa Torres has denied the SEC’s attempt to conceal the records of its former official’s speech on Ethereum. The XRP community views this as a boost for Ripple’s legal battle with the regulator.
In 2018, an SEC official, William Hinman, declared that Ethereum (ETH) was not a security because it had attained enough decentralization.
The XRP community claimed that the speech unfairly favoured Ethereum over other digital assets in the industry and has made it a vital issue in the ongoing lawsuit.
The Judge rejected the SEC’s motion to seal the documents related to Hinman’s speech, saying the deliberative process privilege does not cover them and is therefore available to the public.
In addition, the Judge stated that the documents are relevant to the judicial function and beneficial to the judicial procedure.
Ripple and XRP Reactions
The CEO of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse, hailed the judgment as another win for transparency and stated that the unredacted Hinman emails would be made public soon.
Web3 lawyer Jeremy Hynes said the documents would either disclose bad faith or some embarrassing emails showing the confusion within the SEC. XRP surged 7% in response to the news, reaching $0.4478 at press time.
