After a partial victory in US courts, Ripple Labs said that the crypto firm plans on focusing on markets that have developed clear regulations for the crypto industry.
These include Asian jurisdictions like Hong Kong and Singapore. Media reports also revealed that the blockchain firm, which is based in the US, also plans on expanding to Europe and the United Kingdom.
Clear regulations
Reports on Saturday revealed that the company behind the native XRP token would keep its focus on markets that have an existing and clear regulatory framework for the crypto industry.
The payment operator shared its intentions after it was awarded a partial victory in the court in the United States in its lawsuit with the SEC.
A case-by-case approach has been adopted in the US for dealing with crypto industry participants and token issuers are dealing with separate legal action.
A US judge ruled last week that the XRP token of Ripple Labs does not categorize as a security when it is traded by retail investors or sold on exchanges.
But, the court did rule that XRP token sales to institutional investors were against the law and this will be dealt with in another trial.
The ruling
The said ruling is considered a blow to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which had filed the lawsuit in question in December 2020.
The securities regulator hinted in a recent filing in its lawsuit against Terraform Labs and its CEO that it plans on appealing the ruling in Ripple’s case because it believes the case decisions were wrong.
Rahul Advani, the Asia-Pacific Policy Director for Ripple, said that the victory was a big win for Ripple as well as the crypto industry.
But, he added that they would have to see if it provides any regulatory clarity, or if the enforcement approach would be continued by the SEC for regulation purposes.
In a blog post, Ripple’s team said that they would continue pursuing crypto regulation in the United States and this had just been the beginning.
Regulatory clarity
It is important to note that due to the lack of regulatory clarity for the crypto industry in the United States, many have shifted their focus to Asian markets.
Brooks Entwistle, the APAC Managing Director for Ripple, said back in May that due to its lawsuit with the SEC, it had been doing most of its development outside the country, mostly in Asia.
Ripple is a participant in the central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot program of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, as the region wants to become a crypto hub.
The company has also obtained a payment license to operate in Singapore and its platform is being used for processing remittances.
Other than these two areas, Japan has also come up with a regulatory framework for overseeing the crypto industry.
The European Union has also become the first jurisdiction in the world to have a comprehensive crypto regulatory framework after the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) rules were adopted.