With the Securities and Exchange Commission finally pulling the plug on a four-year court battle with Ripple, the chances of a spot XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) being greenlighted in the U.S. have certainly increased. A top analyst has predicted that Wall Street giants BlackRock and Fidelity will soon enter the XRP ETF race. SEC vs Ripple Lawsuit Dropped On Wednesday, Ripple agreed to pay a $50 million fine to end the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s years-long enforcement case concerning the XRP cryptocurrency. The SEC sued Ripple in late 2020, accusing it of raising $1.3 billion through an unregistered securities offering of XRP. As ZyCrypto reported , Ripple’s CLO, Stuart Alderoty, said that the company had meanwhile agreed to drop its cross-appeal of U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres’ ruling , which found that XRP is “not necessarily a security on its face,” especially within the context of programmatic sales to retail customers. Alderoty’s announcement follows Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s declaration that the SEC’s case has ended. He described it as a “long overdue surrender” on the financial regulator’s part last week. The SEC’s about-face was widely anticipated following Trump’s return to the White House. Since Acting SEC Chair Mark Uyeda took over the commission’s reins, it has retreated from several lawsuits, including those against Robinhood , Coinbase , and OpenSea . XRP ETF Approval “Simply A Matter Of Time” The SEC’s retreat opens the door for mainstream institutional access to XRP, potentially transforming a once-embattled crypto into an approved financial product alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. Nate Geraci, president of the ETF Store, is now convinced that the regulator’s approval of spot XRP ETFs is only “a matter of time.” At least seven major investment firms, including Bitwise, 21Shares, Grayscale, WisdomTree, and Franklin Templeton, have filed for XRP-focused ETFs in anticipation of regulatory greenlight. But despite the growing XRP ETF filing craze, BlackRock — issuer of the largest spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) — has yet to submit a filing for an XRP-based product. But the top ETF analyst sees this changing soon. “And yes, I expect BlackRock, Fidelity, etc, to all be involved. XRP currently the 3rd largest non-stablecoin crypto asset by market cap. Largest ETF issuers aren’t going to ignore this,” Geraci added . XRP was valued at $2.40 as of press time after shedding 1.6% over the last 24 hours.
