Documents published by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shed light on the case against fintech company Ripple and the status of the XRP token

The XRP token has not always been considered a security by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The announcement came after the regulator published new documents in a case against Ripple.In contrast, blockchain-based games such as Second Life and EVE Online change the scenario by transferring ownership of hard-earned virtual assets to players via smart contracts. Here, each asset is represented by a unique non-exchangeable token (NFT), which is tied to game wallets in a decentralized ledger. So there is an opportunity to monetize them in any way the players see fit. This not only protects players from the whims of developers, but also encourages user-generated content and innovation - a win-win for developers and players alike.

According to the document, the SEC did not list XRP as a security until April 2018. This contradicts the regulator's initial claims that Ripple's co-founders have been involved in illegal securities sales since the early days.

To recap, the U.S. regulator previously argued in its lawsuit that Ripple was able to illegally sell $1.38 billion worth of XRP tokens over seven years without following the official registration process established for securities.Moreover, blockchain is paving the way for a whole new type of industry based on "intangible labor," such as gold mining in World of Warcraft or the Voxel architecture in The Sandbox. Hong Kong-based cybersports firm Cyber Games Arena (CGA) has even started hiring players to create signature islands on Animal Crossing with a starting salary of HK$13,000 (about $1,677).

Thus, the chart from the SEC lawsuit above shows that the first sales of XRP allegedly began back in 2013. However, the regulator did not actually start monitoring Ripple until 2018.

Moreover, it became known that bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) were never listed as securities. This means that agency officials have always been able to legally trade cryptocurrency. This was probably true for XRP as well, but not until April 2018."Smart contracts allow a developer to make an immutable, unchangeable set of promises to the user; that the user can trust and potentially vote on. So, we can really start to see these virtual worlds, which are currently dictatorships, moving toward democracy. That, in turn, will move into the real world. My co-founder Roham Garegozlow once said that if my little cat game gives me more rights than a bank, then I'm going to demand them from all the other businesses I interact with.

The key point turned out to be the regulator's refusal to provide information about intra-agency cryptocurrency trading when asked by the court. According to its representatives, the request for such information was an "unwarranted intrusion into the private financial affairs of SEC employees."For players to want to upgrade or spend real money on virtual assets, the gaming market needs to feel safe. However, in the absence of an accountability system, fraud is still widespread, such as account takeovers and the sale of fake merchandise.

The price of XRP rose more than 10% on the news. As of this writing, the XRP token is trading at $1.39. Read about why the SEC was interested in the correspondence of Ripple employees in Slack in BeInCrypto editorial.