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.

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.

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.”

WATCH: Trump addressed Digital Asset Summit

Fresh off its victories in the 2024 election cycle, the crypto industry is going big in Florida.

Affiliates of the Fairshake super PAC, a fundraising group that helped elect pro-crypto candidates up and down the ticket, is trying to boost Republican candidates in two Florida races, which could determine whether Republicans hold their thin House of Representatives majority.

The vacancies emerged after sitting Republican members left to join President Donald Trump’s second administration. One of them, former Congressman Matt Gaetz, withdrew his nomination for attorney general as he faced a number of legal controversies. The other, Michael Waltz, stepped down to become Trump’s national security adviser.

Fairshake is backing State Sen. Randy Fine with $1.16 million in ad spending, and investing another $345,000 to support Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer. Both have expressed support for digital assets.

Orlando school teacher Josh Weil is the Democratic nominee going up against Fine for the seat previously held by Waltz. Democrat Gay Valimont, a gun violence prevention activist in Pensacola,  is looking to take over Gaetz’s seat.

Early voting in Florida begins this weekend. Democrats are aiming to flip both seats in races that have brought in more than $16 million combined, with the vast majority of the cash going towards backing the challengers. The districts have historically leaned red, but Democrats see an opportunity to compete due to the market and economic volatility that have headlined President Trump’s first two months in office.

Fairhsake, which aims to shape Congress in a way that supports favorable crypto regulation, is backed by crypto companies including Coinbase and Ripple as well as venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. It emerged as a major political force in the 2024 House and Senate races, outraising sectors like oil and banking. Fairshake and its affiliates brought in around $170 million in the 2024 cycle, and have $116 million in cash on hand.

The House is currently operating four members short due to recent Democratic vacancies in Texas and Arizona. A sweep by Democrats in those races and the Florida contests could leave Republicans with just a one-seat majority.

WATCH: CNBC’s full interview with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong

With about 10 minutes left until the market’s close, Microsoft’s stock was down for the week. It would’ve been the first eight-week losing streak since 2008.

But the shares popped just before the end of trading, pushing the stock up 0.7% for the week to close at $391.26. It’s still down 7% for the year.

The last time Microsoft had a weekly slump like its seen this year was between January and February 2008, when the country was in the midst of a financial crisis. Microsoft shares fell nine straight weeks.

Microsoft’s 2025 downdraft is notable as the company is viewed as central to the artificial intelligence boom. It has a hefty stake in OpenAI, is investing heavily in its Azure cloud infrastructure and has many products that are incorporating generative AI technologies.

Along with its megacap peers, Microsoft has seen a recent pullback on concerns that President Donald Trump’s tariffs and massive cost cuts will hurt the economy, possibly leading to a recession.

Since reaching a closing high of $467.56 in July 2024, Microsoft is down about 16%, pushing its market cap to $2.9 trillion. The company issued disappointing revenue guidance on Jan. 30.

Within cloud and AI, competition is heating up across the board from rivals like Amazon and Google as well as from emerging startups. Earlier this week, Google announced its intent to acquire cloud security startup Wiz for $32 billion.

WATCH: Trump’s FTC moves ahead with broad Microsoft antitrust probe, reports say