It’s like 2021 again as crypto altcoins soar as much as 66%
In this photo illustration, a visual representation of the digital Cryptocurrency Ripple is displayed on January 30, 2018 in Paris, France.
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Ripple’s XRP token went up 68% in the last 24 hours, leading a wider rally of major-cap altcoins, as crypto traders digest a key ruling that could stifle U.S. regulator efforts to stamp out digital asset trading.
Solana’s SOL and Cardano’s ADA tokens are 26% and 21% higher, while Algorand’s ALGO and Polygon’s MATIC coins are up 12% and 9%, respectively. All four tokens were recently singled out as securities in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s formal suits against popular crypto retail trading exchanges, including Binance and Coinbase.
But the Thursday summary judgement from U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres calls that classification into question.
For three years, the SEC and Ripple Labs — who developed the Ripple blockchain and issues the XRP token — have been locked in a protracted courtroom battle over whether the XRP, the world’s fourth-largest cryptocurrency, constitutes a security.
In 2020, the SEC alleged that Ripple, its CEO Brad Garlinghouse and the company’s executive chairman violated securities laws when it sold $1.4 billion worth of XRP. Ripple maintained that its token is not a security — triggering ongoing confusion over which digital coins fall into which regulatory bucket.
Many viewed the agency’s lawsuit against the San Francisco-based startup Ripple as a bellwether case for the wider industry — which could potentially force the SEC’s hand on defining which of the nearly 20,000 crypto tokens fall under its jurisdiction.
In her judgment on Thursday, U.S. Southern District of New York District Court Judge Analisa Torres ruled that XRP in itself is “not necessarily a security on its face.”
That elated industry participants, who saw the decision as a victory for both XRP and other coins.
“The ruling by federal Judge Analisa Torres is a landmark decision because she challenged the SEC in holding that Ripple’s XRP token is not a security subject to SEC regulation,” said Renato Mariotti, a former prosecutor in the U.S. Justice Department’s Securities & Commodities Fraud Section and now a trial partner in Chicago with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.
“The ruling undercuts the SEC’s assertion that nearly every token is a security and puts at risk some of the Commission’s recent enforcement actions.”
The industry hopes that the Thursday move “could lead Congress to adopt a more rational regulatory scheme,” Mariotti said. But uncertainty will continue to reign, in the absence of clear regulation, he added.
The development has nevertheless caused excitement in the crypto market. Coinbase has already moved to re-list XRP since Thursday.
The response from crypto markets harks back to the heydays of the crypto boom in 2021, when several bitcoin “alternatives,” or altcoins, rallied sharply, following on from a bounce in the largest cryptocurrency’s price.
Not clear cut
Judge Torres didn’t give Ripple a clean victory, ruling that some sales of XRP did constitute investment contracts that pass the so-called “Howey test” — a legal assessment to determine whether an asset is a security.
XRP sales to institutional investors, she said, qualify as securities and should have been registered with the SEC. That’s because investors involved in those sales signed up to agreements, which meant they had to lock up their tokens for a certain period of time.
Given they couldn’t back out of the deals, there was no possibility for XRP to be viewed as anything other than a speculative investment.
On the other hand, Torres pronounced that “programmatic sales” of the token — or crypto exchange transactions with retail investors — do not qualify as securities.
“The judge declined to deliver summary judgment on the question of whether programmatic sales of XRP via exchanges constituted the sale of securities, meaning that this question will be litigated further,” Cory Klippsten, the CEO of Bitcoin financial services firm Swan.com, told CNBC.
“I believe it’s likely that secondary trading of altcoins on exchanges will be given a pass, and that this is consistent with the laws on the books.”
Much of the SEC’s recent actions against exchanges like Gemini, Binance, and Coinbase hinge on the assumption that the assets on the platforms are securities. Thus, listing them without SEC approvals translated to a violation of securities laws.
The Thursday ruling may complicate the SEC’s campaign against exchanges, as it suggests that exchanges of crypto on the open market might not qualify as sales of securities.
Crypto-pegged equities like Coinbase and MicroStrategy — which has heavily invested its corporate balance sheet in bitcoin — were up by 24% and 11%, respectively, as of the Thursday close.
While Torres maintained that XRP in itself is not a security, many investors appear to be missing the point — what makes an asset a security isn’t the asset itself, but the way in which it is sold or marketed.
It is a more nuanced judgment than many in the industry have been treating it, and it’s worth noting the case is far from settled. There is a possibility that some of the findings could be appealed and reversed, as the court is due to issue a separate order setting a trial date.
After years of waiting and many false starts, Formula E is finally going to debut its mid-race charging system, which will give cars a quick boost of energy charging at a rate much faster than current road cars can.
For years now, we’ve been hearing about FIA plans to introduce charging stops to electric racing.
In gas car racing, some series allow mid-race fueling and some don’t. The World Endurance Championship, which runs the 24 Hours of Le Mans, obviously needs to fill up several times during the race. But Formula 1, which hosts shorter races, eliminated mid-race fueling in 2010.
Plans to bring mid-race charging to Formula E started in 2021, when the FIA started kicking around plans for an Electric GT racing series with 700kW charging.
But the FIA already had one electric racing series, Formula E, which had debuted in 2014. At the time, each driver had two cars, and would swap mid-race to a fresh car with new batteries.
Battery-swapping had been considered, but it would be too complicated to set up at temporary race facilities in city downtown areas, as many Formula E tracks are.
Then, in 2018, Formula E debuted a new “Gen 2” car which had a big enough battery not to need a charge mid-race, and later a “Gen 3” car in 2022, which had much stronger regenerative braking, capable of 600kW of braking power. Gen 3 also has an “Attack Mode” feature that lets cars unlock additional power for a short period each race, adding to strategy and mixing up the race order.
That 600kW charging ability could also be used for mid-race charging, so Formula E said that it was working on a system to allow for this. It announced that mid-race charging would come at some point in the 2023 season, but then pushed back those plans until 2024, and pushed them back again, this time with an uncertain date.
The issues involved building the charging system in temporary facilities and ensuring safety of the system (and of pit stops in general, which is always a concern when cars are driving rapidly near people). But after winter testing prior to this season, Formula E now says the system is ready to go.
So, once again, Formula E is ready to announce that mid-race charging is definitely, totally, positively, 100% certain at the upcoming Jeddah E-Prix, on February 14-15 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Formula E thinks that proving this high-power charging technology could help road cars to charge more quickly, which could have myriad benefits for electric cars in general.
The series is calling the system “Pit Boost,” and it will consist of a 34-second pit stop that provides around 10% additional charge to the cars (about 4kWh). While 10% isn’t a lot, 34 seconds is also not a lot of time. For comparison, one of the fastest-charging cars out there, the Ioniq 5, can charge from 10-80% in 18 minutes, which means 10% charge takes 2.5 minutes – five times as long as Formula E cars will manage the feat.
The stop will be mandatory for all drivers to take at some point in the race, and will mean new strategy options for drivers. Taking the stop means getting more energy, which means that your car won’t have to do as much energy saving to get to the end of the race – but it also means giving up your position on track, which can be hard to get back if you do it late in the race.
However, we’ve never seen it happen before, so it will be interesting to see what kind of strategic options develop.
If you’re interested in seeing how it turns out, tune in to the Jeddah E-Prix on February 14-15 to see what happens. It’s a doubleheader race weekend, with night races both on Saturday and Sunday, February 14-15, at 5pm UTC, 9am PST, 12pm EST, and 8pm local time. You can check out how to watch the race in your area by going to Formula E’s “Ways to Watch” section. In the US, Roku should be the most reliable way to watch.
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JackRabbit, the maker of pint-sized electric microbikes, is back with a new product designed to quickly recharge their batteries from pure, uncut photons mainlined into an e-bike directly from the sun. In true independent charging form, the Solar Charging Kit from JackRabbit keeps riders rolling even when there’s not a convenient AC outlet in sight.
Unveiled this week, the Solar Charging Kit consists of a single folding solar panel and a tiny voltage converter that is configured to output 42.0V, which is the exact voltage required by JackRabbit’s little e-bike batteries. There’s also an added USB-A and a USB-C charging port for powering other devices in addition to charging JackRabbit batteries.
“This Solar Charging Kit plugs directly into your bike,” explained the company, “letting you recharge without needing an outlet, but with a speed comparable to the charger that comes with the OG/OG2 (42V, 2A).”
That would mean the panel outputs around 80W of solar power, which the company says can recharge its batteries in just three hours. That fairly quick recharging speed is helped by the fact that JackRabbit’s batteries are a mere 151 Wh, or around a third of the size of most e-bike batteries.
If that sounds small, then you’re right – it is. But JackRabbit is all about going micro, offering barely 25 lb rideables that are easy to store and bring on adventures, even when they aren’t actually being ridden.
With small batteries that fit under the 160Wh limit for many airlines in the US, the batteries can be quickly charged and taken to the widest number of locations. And for riders that want to go further than a single 10-mile (16-km) battery will allow, extra batteries are small enough to fit a pants pocket. The company also offers much larger Rangebuster batteries, though they won’t pass by TSA and make it onto an airplane in your personal item.
It sounds like the Solar Chargking Kit should be able to charge up JackRabbit’s large RangeBuster batteries, though likely in more than three hours.
The $349 Solar Charging Kit is a bit pricier than building something similar yourself, but it’s also safer and more convenient than hacking together your own battery charger since it’s designed to work with JackRabbit’s batteries right out of the box.
Technically it’s only inteded for JackRabbit’s micro e-bikes (themselves technically seated scooters, even if they look and feel more like a typical bike), but it’d probably work for just about any 36V e-bike that requires 42.0V to charge.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen solar charging kits for electric bikes, and it’s a trend that is certainly appreciated by outdoors and camping enthusiasts, festival goers, or anyone who finds themself and their bike spending extended periods in the great, sunny outdoors.
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