XRP tokens bucked the trend of a market-wide decline by surging 8% in the past 24 hours, despite a regulatory filing by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) against major cryptocurrency exchange Binance. The digital asset was trading just under 50 cents during Asian morning hours on Tuesday, reaching a five-month high.
The recent surge in XRP’s value may be attributed to the fundamental upgrades made to the XRP Ledger network over the past few months. These upgrades have enhanced the technology’s performance and contributed to the asset’s overall growth.
Moreover, the bullish outlook on XRP was also fueled by some members of the cryptocurrency community, who speculated that the CFTC’s classification of major tokens as commodities in its filing against Binance could potentially classify XRP tokens as commodities instead of securities. This development could have significant implications in the ongoing legal battle between Ripple and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which alleges that XRP tokens are securities.
Ripple’s CTO, David Schwartz, has previously argued that XRP tokens should be classified as a commodity due to their usage in commerce and their equivalence to each other. Despite Ripple’s attempts to distance itself from XRP, any developments in the ongoing legal battle with the SEC have an impact on the token’s value.
Recently, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Binance, alleging that the exchange offered unregistered crypto derivatives products and directed U.S. customers to use VPNs to evade compliance controls.
The lawsuit refers to major tokens including bitcoin, ether, litecoin, tether, and Binance USD as commodities. This news caused bitcoin to fall below $27,000 and ether to briefly drop under $1,700 before recovering, while the overall market capitalization declined by nearly 3%.