After four years of process involving the Ripple Labs and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over whether XRP is a security or not, a new lawsuit involving the token was recently filed by cryptocurrency derivatives exchange Bitnomial.
On Oct. 10, the company filed a lawsuit against the SEC, its chairman Gary Gensler, and four other commissioners, arguing that the regulator had what it deemed “inadequate” jurisdiction over its XRP Futures product.
Bitnomial emphasized in the recently filed document that the SEC claimed its yet-to-be-listed XRP Futures violated U.S. federal securities laws by classifying the XRP token as an investment contract.
In this sense, the regulator argued that the product needs to be supervised by both the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), regulators of the American industry.
“Bitnomial disagrees with the SEC’s view that XRP is an investment contract and therefore a security, and that XRP Futures are therefore futures securities,” the company wrote in the lawsuit.
In its filing, the exchange highlighted the SEC’s requirement that XRP Futures comply with additional requirements, given that the product had already obtained a self-certification from the CFTC. One of the requirements imposed included the “significant task” of registering as a national securities exchange under the regulator’s jurisdiction.
Also at the time, the company said in the lawsuit that the Agency effectively prevented it from listing XRP Futures contracts.
“As the SEC is aware, XRP, which is the underlying security in the SEC’s view, is not registered,” the lawsuit said. “Furthermore, Bitnomial is not the issuer of XRP and, even if it wanted to, does not have the power to register XRP.”
The lawsuit also highlighted the Southern District of New York court’s ruling that rejected the SEC’s position that deemed XRP a security when traded on a secondary market.