“And so, Mr. Mccaleb is probably watching the Ripple lawsuit very closely and praying that Ripple wins”, Mr. Hogan added.
A few attorneys have risen to prominence online since the SEC decided to file a complaint against Ripple Labs for an alleged unregistered sale of securities, implying that XRP is a security.
One of those lawyers is Jeremy Hogan, who has gained popularity with his Youtube videos covering and commenting on the lawsuit. In his latest, Mr. Hogan offered to answer any question in a typical “ask me anything” (AMA) fashion.
While he answered several questions and jokes, a few were more newsworthy than others such as: “Is there a difference between Ripple selling XRP to businesses and jed selling XRP from this taco stand wallet onto open exchanges?”
Jed refers to Jed McCaleb, the Ripple co-founder and first CTO who left to launch Stellar (XLM). McCaleb continues to sell millions of XRP despite the ongoing SEC v. Ripple lawsuit.
When the SEC sued Ripple, the agency claimed that all XRP, including XRP sold in the secondary market, were always unregistered securities. In a recent tweet, XRP Holders attorney John Deaton commented on this controversy:
“Although the SEC claims that all XRP are unregistered securities and Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen unjustly enriched themselves, it allows Ripple Co-founder JedMcCaleb to sell his XRP for hundreds of millions of dollars to possibly buy MoneyGram. Makes perfect sense.”
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In regard to the question, attorney Jeremy Hogan stated Jed McCaleb “basically sold XRP just like Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen – he just wasn’t employed by Ripple when he sold it. And he wasn’t sued. But could he be?”
Mr. Hogan then analyzed the how an SEC lawyer explained it to the Judge back in the hearing in March.
“Court: Presumably then every individual in the world who is selling XRP would be violating securities laws?”
“SEC Attorney: Section 5 focuses on the issuer and affiliates of the issuer that are captured by the statute and Section specifically exempts these transactions of other people buying and selling XRP.”
Jeremy Hogan then concluded that the legal question becomes “is Jed McCaleb an affiliate of Ripple? And the short answer is that because he received the rights to receive the tokens during his break-up with Ripple as an executive that probably prohibits him from receiving the protections of Section 4.”
“And so, Mr. Mccaleb is probably watching the Ripple lawsuit very closely and praying that Ripple wins”, Mr. Hogan added.
Jed McCaleb received 8 billion XRP tokens for his role co-founder and CTO in the development of the OpenCoin company, which has since been rebranded to Ripple Labs.
McCaleb and Ripple reached an agreement in which he could sell 1.5% of XRP’s daily volume per day. In 2020, McCaleb sold a whopping $400 million worth of XRP and has sold almost 2.4 billion XRP so far this year, which may have been worth approximately $1.95 billion.
The SEC has made no public statement regarding Jed McCaleb’s XRP activity despite the ongoing SEC v. Ripple lawsuit, which had XRP being delisted by crypto exchanges in the United States, crippling the market.
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