The discourse over XRP sales and whether they fall under securities has taken an interesting turn with insights from legal expert Bill Morgan. He recently provided clarification on the matter via Twitter, highlighting the existing confusion and his intent to clear things up.
Morgan's statement came after SEC former director John Reed Stark claimed that the judge in the Coinbase-SEC case had disagreed with Judge Torres' ruling on secondary XRP sales and investment contracts.
In response to Stark's assertion, Morgan refuted it, stating that Torres did not make any such determination regarding secondary sales of XRP. He pointed out that Failla's disagreement was therefore unfounded.
Another legal expert, Marc Fagel, challenged Morgan, questioning how token sales through exchanges could meet Torres' Howey standard.
In reply, Morgan respectfully disagreed with Fagel, emphasizing that Torres' decision was based on specific Ripple programmatic sales due to the limited categories the SEC presented for consideration.
Morgan pointed out that Torres found the programmatic sales were not investment contracts based on the specific details, notably Ripple's promotion of XRP to secondary market investors.
While acknowledging Torres' identification of Ripple's promotion to institutional investors, Morgan highlighted the absence of widespread promotion. He stressed that such a scenario does not universally apply to other cryptocurrencies like Solana.
Given the fact-specific nature of the Howey test, Morgan questioned why Torres' ruling on programmatic XRP sales should imply that no secondary market crypto sales are ever investment contracts.
He concluded by stating that Torres' decision was based on uncontested evidence and emphasized that there is no evident factual error. In Morgan's view, the SEC's chances of a successful appeal are slim.
