Crypto’s long battle with SEC comes to a close with Ripple victory
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, speaks at the 2022 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 4, 2022.
Mike Blake | Reuters
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s years-long crusade against the crypto industry appears to be over.
The final chapter closed on Wednesday, when Ripple announced that the SEC had officially dropped its four-year-old lawsuit against the company. The suit, filed on Jay Clayton’s last day as SEC chair, accused Ripple of raising $1.3 billion through the sale of its XRP token without registering it as a security.
Crypto companies and exchanges Coinbase, Kraken, Robinhood, Binance, and OpenSea all previously saw lawsuits or investigations dropped, resolved or put on hold. Ripple is now taking a victory lap.
“Ripple stands alone as the company that fought back — and won on essential legal questions — throwing a major wrench into the SEC’s plans to destroy crypto in the U.S. through enforcement,” Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty told CNBC in an emailed statement. “The SEC has now abandoned its appeal in our case. In a fitting irony, Ripple was the first major case they brought and will now be the last one they walk away from.”
XRP was created in 2012 as one of the first non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies. It was started by the founders of the company Ripple, and became the platform’s native currency. Like bitcoin, XRP can be bought and sold by retail investors. XRP jumped about 11% after Wednesday’s announcement.
Ripple spent $150 million battling the government in a bruising legal standoff with former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, whose approach to crypto was widely viewed as hostile. In July 2023, a federal judge ruled that XRP is “not necessarily a security on its face,” undercutting the foundation of the SEC’s case.
The win wasn’t just a turning point for Ripple. It signaled to the crypto industry that the tide was turning, and built momentum for a movement that helped return President Donald Trump, a former crypto critic, to the White House. A year after the judge’s ruling, Trump, as Republican nominee, delivered a keynote at the annual Bitcoin Conference, and announced that he was “laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.”
Ripple and its crypto peers were major contributors to Trump’s campaign. The president has spent his first two months in office paying them back.
New leadership
On Friday, the SEC hosted its first major crypto roundtable, signaling a new approach of regulation through engagement, rather than enforcement. Leading the effort is Hester Peirce, who is helming the regulator’s newly established Crypto Task Force.
Peirce’s message to the industry is that the SEC is no longer an adversary, but is instead trying to give crypto a clear, lawful framework.
In a major policy reversal, the SEC rescinded Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 — a controversial rule that required banks to treat crypto assets as liabilities on their balance sheets. Introduced in 2022 and championed by Gensler, the rule was widely viewed as a major barrier to institutional adoption of bitcoin and other digital assets.
“Bye, bye SAB 121! It’s not been fun,” Peirce wrote on in a post on X after the change was announced in January.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that month, CEOs from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America signaled that the thaw in Washington could lead to renewed crypto engagement.
U.S. President Donald Trump sits next to Crypto czar David Sacks at the White House Crypto Summit at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 7, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
And at the White House, David Sacks, Trump’s AI and crypto czar, stood beside the president as he signed an executive order on digital assets. Sacks had recently attended the Crypto Ball as part of the inauguration, where he declared, “The war on crypto is over.”
Coinbase’s lawsuit was dismissed in February. Then came Kraken. The SEC pulled back from its Wells Notice against Robinhood’s crypto division. The investigation into Binance is on hold.
Ripple’s legal team long argued that the SEC’s strategy wasn’t about upholding the law, but about using it as a blunt instrument. The regulator sent subpoenas to foreign regulators that worked with Ripple, demanded troves of documents from business partners and even sued CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen personally. Those charges have also been dropped.
“While this chapter is closed, the fight for clear, fair, and transparent crypto regulation continues,” Alderoty told CNBC. “Ripple will continue to lead that fight.”
A Zoox autonomous robotaxi in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Amazon‘s Zoox issued a software recall for 270 of its robotaxis after a crash in Las Vegas last month, the company said Tuesday.
The recall surrounds a defect with the vehicle’s automated driving system that could cause it to inaccurately predict the movement of another car, increasing “the risk of a crash,” according to a report submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Zoox submitted the recall after an April 8 incident in Las Vegas where an unoccupied Zoox robotaxi collided with a passenger vehicle, the NHTSA report states. There were no injuries in the crash and only minor damage occurred to both vehicles.
“After analysis and rigorous testing, Zoox identified the root cause,” the company said in a blog post. “We issued a software update that was implemented across all Zoox vehicles. All Zoox vehicles on the road today, including our purpose-built robotaxi and test fleet, have the updated software.”
Zoox paused all driverless vehicle operations while it reviewed the incident. It’s since resumed operations after rolling out the software update.
Amazon acquired Zoox in 2020 for over $1 billion, announcing at the time that the deal would help bring the self-driving technology company’s “vision for autonomous ride-hailing to reality.” However, Amazon has fallen far behind Alphabet‘s Waymo, which has robotaxi services operating in multiple U.S. markets. Tesla has also announced plans to launch a robotaxi offering in Austin in June, though the company has missed many prior target dates for releasing its technology.
Zoox has been testing its robotaxis in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Foster City, California. Last month, Zoox began testing a small fleet of retrofitted vehicles in Los Angeles.
Last month, NHTSA closed a probe into two crashes involving Toyota Highlanders equipped with Zoox’s autonomous vehicle technology. The agency opened the probe last May after the vehicles braked suddenly and were rear-ended by motorcyclists, which led to minor injuries.
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Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp speaks during the Hill & Valley Forum at the US Capitol Visitor Center Auditorium in Washington, DC, on April 30, 2025.
Brendan Smialowski | Afp | Getty Images
Palantir shares dropped more than 10% Tuesday even after the data analytics and artificial intelligence software company showed ongoing revenue growth acceleration.
“Some investors may be disappointed with the modest full- year revenue guidance raise, the sequential margin decline, and the international commercial revenue year-over-year decline,” wrote William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma, adding that the company’s high software multiple makes it “vulnerable” to compression as revenue growth slows.
Despite the post-earnings move, Palantir topped revenue expectations and lifted its revenue guidance for the year. The Denver-based company posted adjusted earnings of 13 cents per share on $884 million in revenues. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected adjusted EPS of 13 cents and revenues of $863 million.
Palantir’s revenues rose 39% from $634.3 million in the year-ago quarter. Net income grew to about $214 million, or 8 cents per share, from roughly $105.5 million, or 4 cents per share, a year ago. The company also hiked its full-year revenue outlook to between $3.89 billion and $3.90 billion
CEO Alex Karp said that “Palantir is on fire” and he’s “very optimistic” about the current setup during the earnings call after the bell Monday.
“The reality of what’s going on is that this is an unvarnished cacophony — the combination of 20 years of investment and a massive cultural shift in the U.S. which is generating numbers,” he said.
Palantir has outperformed the market this year, building on a successful 2024 run in which the stock was the best performer in the S&P 500. Many on Wall Street say the surge in shares has contributed to an elevated multiple for the company, making the bar higher and higher to clear. To be sure, the stock has undergone immense volatility amid the latest batch of market volatility spurred by President Donald Trump’s tariff plans.
“While 2025 numbers move higher on guidance ahead of consensus, we question conservatism and if estimate revisions are priced in from here,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst Rishi Jaluria.
Despite the company’s strong execution and fundamentals, Mizuho’s Gregg Moskowitz also said it’s “very difficult to justify” its high multiple. Raymond James analyst Brian Gesuale said that Palantir needs to consolidate some of its gains to “grow into its rich valuation.”
Wall Street also highlighted a deceleration in international commercial revenues among the reasons for the potential decline in shares. The segment fell 5% year over year after rising 3% in the previous quarter due to headwinds in Europe.
Management said on an earnings call that the region is “going through a very structural change and doesn’t quite get AI.”
Palantir ytd share chart
Travelers walk past a sign pointing toward the Uber rideshare vehicle pickup area at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on February 8, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Images
Uber will acquire an 85% stake in Turkish food delivery platform Trendyol GO for about $700 million in cash, the company said in a securities filing.
The deal, subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in the second half of this year. Uber said it expects the transaction to be accretive to its growth once completed.
“Uber and Trendyol GO coming together will elevate the delivery sector in Türkiye for consumers, couriers, restaurants and retailers, especially small and family-owned businesses,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a release. “This deal reflects our long-term commitment to Türkiye, we’re incredibly impressed with what the Trendyol GO team has built, and we’re excited to continue that strong momentum across the country.”
Founded in 2010, Trendyol GO is run by Turkish e-commerce platform Trendyol, which is majority owned by Chinese titan Alibaba. The platform hosts roughly 90,000 restaurants and 19,000 couriers across the country.
In 2024, Trendyol GO delivery more than 200 million orders and generated $2 billion in gross bookings, a jump of 50% year over year, Uber said in the securities filing.
The announcement comes as Uber is set to report first-quarter earnings before market open on Wednesday. The rideshare and food delivery company is expected to post earnings per share of 51 cents on revenue of $11.6 billion, according to StreetAccount.
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