Ripple chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty has expressed reservations about the recent string of legal defeats suffered by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission during Gary Gensler’s tenure. These remarks follow another setback for the SEC in the Fifth Circuit Court after Ripple’s victory in the XRP lawsuit in July 2023.
Alderoty characterized this sequence of events as a “deeply concerning trend” in which the SEC, under the leadership of Chair Gary Gensler, appears to be straying from its commitment to upholding the law. Alderoty expressed concern about the SEC’s repeated arbitrary and capricious actions in court cases, suggesting a troubling pattern under Gensler’s leadership.
Another day and another Court finds that the SEC again acted arbitrarily and capriciously. Is anyone else concerned about this very troubling pattern of the SEC flouting any faithful allegiance to law under Mr. Gensler? https://t.co/5bUgSBUOI8
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in the U.S. deemed the SEC’s stock buyback disclosure rule as arbitrary and lacking reasonable explanation on Oct. 31. The court has provided an opportunity for the SEC to demonstrate a thorough consideration of pertinent matters and provide a good basis for its decision. This development follows the SEC’s recent defeats in the XRP lawsuit and the Grayscale filing, which could hold significance for the crypto industry’s regulatory future.
The legal action, initiated by multiple U.S. business and trade associations, revolves around an SEC regulation mandating issuers to report daily information on share repurchases every quarter and to provide the rationale behind repurchasing their own stock.
Judge Analisa Torres, on Oct. 25, 2023, issued an order officially dismissing charges against Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse and executive chairman Chris Larsen in the Ripple v. U.S. SEC lawsuit. Furthermore, there have been developments regarding institutional sales of XRP (XRP). Judge Torres has requested a joint scheduling brief from both parties on this issue. The Summary Judgment on July 13, 2023, was a split verdict, favoring Ripple in the case of retail XRP token sales.
Bitcoin’s expanding institutional adoption may provide the “structural” inflows necessary to surpass gold’s market capitalization and push its price beyond $1 million by 2029, according to Bitwise’s head of European research, André Dragosch.
“Our in-house prediction is $1 million by 2029. So that Bitcoin will match gold’s market cap and total addressable market by 2029,” he told Cointelegraph during the Chain Reaction daily X spaces show on April 30.
Gold is currently the world’s largest asset, valued at over $21.7 trillion. In comparison, Bitcoin’s market capitalization sits at $1.9 trillion, making it the seventh-largest asset globally, according to CompaniesMarketCap data.
Top 10 global assets by market capitalization. Source: CompaniesMarketCap
For the 2025 market cycle, Bitcoin may surpass $200,000 in the “base case” and $500,000 with more governmental adoption, Dragosch said.
“But once you see sovereign bias like the US government stepping in, all this will change to $500,000.”
“So the base case is $200,000, conditional on the US government not stepping in. If they step in, it will move closer toward $500,000,” said Dragosch, referring to the US government’s plan to potentially make direct Bitcoin acquisitions through “budget-neutral” strategies.
The US is looking at “many creative ways” to fund its Bitcoin investments, including from tariff revenue and by reevaluating the US Treasury’s gold certificates, creating a paper surplus to fund the BTC reserve without selling gold, Bo Hines of the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets said in an interview on April 14.
The US-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have surpassed all expectations during their first year of trading, exceeding record trading volumes as BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF became the fastest-growing ETF in history.
The first year is usually the “slowest” for ETFs, Dragosch said, highlighting the launch of the gold ETF:
“That alone implies that in the second and third year, we will see growing inflows. In terms of the four four-year cycle, implies that, this cycle will be prolonged by these structural inflows.”
The Bitcoin cycle may also be prolonged when US wirehouses start gaining exposure to Bitcoin and ETFs.
“In the US, the major distribution channels go via Wirehouses, which are essentially the big banks like Merrill Lynch or Morgan Stanley. […] Not even half of these wirehouses have opened up their distribution channels to US Bitcoin ETFs,” the analyst said.
Adoption from US wirehouses may bring a “huge amount of capital,” since these control over $10 trillion worth of customer assets, Dragosch added.
Major European cryptocurrency investment firm 21Shares has filed for a spot Sui exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States, marking another step in its expansion to the US market.
21Shares on April 30 submitted the Form S-1 registration for a spot Sui (SUI) ETF to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Called the 21Shares Sui ETF, the proposed ETF will issue common shares of beneficial interest by seeking to track the performance of SUI held by 21Shares’ US subsidiary.
The US filing comes a year after 21Shares started trading the 21Shares Sui Staking exchange-traded product in Europe in July 2024, with its first listings on Euronext Paris and Euronext Amsterdam.
No ticker or planned exchange yet
The 128-page filing does not specify on which US exchange the new SUI ETF is expected to debut trading. The ETF also doesn’t have a ticker symbol yet.
“There is no certainty that there will be liquidity available on the exchange or that the market price will be in line with the NAV [net asset value] or the principal market NAV at any given time,” it states.
An excerpt from the S-1 Form for 21Shares Sui ETF. Source: SEC
The filing highlighted that the ETF aims to provide exposure to SUI by holding the tokens directly, without utilizing leverage, derivatives or engaging in speculative trading.
Canary Capital was the first to file for Sui ETF
21Shares is not the first company to file for a Sui ETF in the US. Canary Capital, a US-based crypto investment firm, filed a Form S-1 registration for a spot Sui ETF on March 17.
Banking giant Morgan Stanley reportedly plans to list cryptocurrencies on its E*Trade investment brokerage and trading platform.
According to a May 1 Bloomberg report, the firm intends to list crypto assets on E*Trade in 2026. The plan is still in early development, and the bank is said to be exploring partnerships with established crypto firms to power the service. Internal discussions about cryptocurrency support reportedly began in late 2024.
This would not be Morgan Stanley’s first exposure to digital assets. The bank’s wealthiest clients have had access to crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and futures for some time, with the firm’s advisers allowed to pitch Bitcoin ETFs since August 2024.
The news follows previous reports that Morgan Stanley was considering adding cryptocurrency trading to its E*Trade online brokerage platform in early January. The reports at the time cited the expectations of a friendlier crypto regulatory environment.
The move comes amid an increasingly favorable regulatory environment in the United States following the election of President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a pro-crypto platform and is personally involved in several blockchain ventures.