Experts say it looks like Ripple and SEC have reached a settlement

Prominent XRP community member and expert Ashley Prosper has pointed to several factors that suggest a settlement has been reached in the long-running legal dispute between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple, but this remains speculative.

Ashley Prosper mentioned in a recent X article: “I can’t say that Ripple and the SEC have reached a settlement. However, I can say that… it looks like it.”

Factors supporting Prosper's view
The prominent XRP community member further highlighted several factors that he believes support his view.
First, he pointed to the recent Second Circuit decision in SEC v. Govil, which denied the Commission’s request to vacate its decision regarding the return of benefits. Notably, the court ruled that the SEC has no authority to require sellers to return profits if the buyer did not suffer a financial loss.
Second, Prosper believes that the SEC’s written statement on the remedy was extremely poor because it failed to find a single institutional investor who suffered financial loss from purchasing XRP from Ripple.
According to him, another factor that suggests the SEC and Ripple may have reached a settlement is the occurrence of a settlement conference without the defendants filing a response related to the remedy.

To recap, the parties held a settlement conference on March 29 at 03:10 pm (ET). The meeting was in compliance with the court's directive requiring the parties to meet at least one hour before the final pre-trial conference on April 16 to explore the possibility of settling the case. According to Prosper, the settlement conference took longer than expected.

SEC now turns attention to other crypto entities
Additionally, Prosper noted that the SEC has shifted its focus away from Ripple to filing charges against other cryptocurrency-related entities, including Ethereum and Uniswap.
For example, the SEC has launched an investigation that could potentially designate Ethereum as a security. It also sent a Wells notification to Uniswap, a popular Ethereum-based decentralized exchange (DEX).

Additionally, the XRP enthusiast mentioned Ripple’s plans to issue a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar and the company’s sudden release of 500 million XRP from its escrow account.
Following the unscheduled release of 5 million XRP, Ripple enthusiasts speculated that the crypto payments company planned to use the funds to meet its settlement obligations.
Finally, the expert also highlighted the upcoming SEC Sunshine Act meeting as another factor that points to a settlement between the two parties. It is worth mentioning that the SEC recently held a closed meeting on April 11.

Some corrections
However, it is unclear whether the two parties have reached a settlement, as Prosper and other XRP enthusiasts have speculated. The lawsuit is still in the remediation phase, and Ripple is expected to file its objections to the SEC’s written statement by April 22.
In a subsequent disclosure, Prosper corrected some of his comments, confirming that no settlement conference was scheduled for April 16, as previously stated. Furthermore, he stressed that the reasons behind the unlocking of the 5 million escrow have received attention.
Explaining the situation, The Crypto Basic confirmed this morning that the purpose of this escrow unlock is to fulfill the monthly scheduled quota of 1 billion tokens. Notably, Ripple planned to conduct these transactions on April 1, only to encounter delays. Despite these corrections, Prosper continued to speculate on his other views.

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