There was a court decision in the Ripple/XRP case yesterday, which set the internet on fire.

The proponents of XRP were boasting that XRP was confirmed to not be a security. The detractors of XRP were claiming that XRP sales to institutions were confirmed to be sales of unregistered securities.

So which is true?

The answer is complex, but both have a strong argument.

First, institutional sales of XRP were deemed to be unregistered security sales.

The argument is that institutions were not buying XRP as a replacement for fiat currency, but rather they were buying XRP for the future potential appreciation in the token price.

Here is the relevant section from the ruling:

The explanation seems crystal clear here, so you may be asking yourself why XRP almost doubled in price yesterday and people seem to be celebrating on the internet? Well, non-institutional sales—including on exchanges and secondary sales—were confirmed to not qualify as sales of a security.

If XRP is not a security, then majority of the other cryptocurrencies will probably be classified as not a security. This would create regulatory clarity once confirmed.
Regulatory clarity will lead to more investors allocating capital to the space. They will have less friction in getting approvals from their compliance departments, while also having greater confidence in the underlying assets that they are holding.
Exchanges, such as Coinbase, are already adding XRP back to their platforms. This means that more investors will have access to the token, but it also creates a stronger argument for Coinbase and others that they are not allowing unregistered securities to trade on their platform. Coinbase’s stock is up 100% over the last 30 days and 37% in the last 5 days.
The SEC will have to decide how they are going to proceed with the regulatory oversight of the cryptocurrency tokens. There is an argument for them continuing on the same path as they were before this decision, but there is also an argument for a revised strategy that is less aggressive.
It is not hard to see this legal decision emboldening various entrepreneurs and companies in the crypto industry. Some will take a path of arrogance and “I told you so!,” but others will simply use this new information to adapt their strategy to further achieve their goals without being loud and brash about it.