Crypto exchange OKCoin announced plans to delist XRP after it became known that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission would take legal action against Ripple.
In a blog post published today, OKCoin said its “best course of action” in response to the recent SEC lawsuit is to suspend trading and deposits of XRP. The exchange wrote that the suspension would take place over two days. Users who have borrowed XRP / USD through OKCoin must return the borrowed value before January 3rd. The following day, the exchange will stop spot trading, margin trading and deposits for XRP.
“It is likely that this situation will take some time to resolve,” the OKCoin blog post said. “We will proactively inform our customers when we have information that could change our position.”
OKCoin’s position arises from the SEC’s December 22 disclosure of the charges against Ripple and CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen. The commission alleges that the company and its executives have been conducting an “unregistered, ongoing offering of securities for digital assets” to investors since 2013 through the sale of the XRP token. Garlinghouse responded that the SEC “voted to attack crypto” and was “doing the opposite of” promoting innovation “in the United States.
Since the news of the SEC fees broke, the price of XRP has fallen more than 36% as some exchanges announced they would stop trading the token, including OSL, Beaxy and CrossTower. Digital Asset Exchange Bitstamp is also planning to suspend XRP trading, but only for US-based users. However, the delisting of XRP on OKCoin – in 29th place according to CoinMarketCap – may be a forerunner for large exchanges to follow.
The SEC has hired @Ripple to conduct an unregistered security sale.
For this reason, #Beaxy has stopped trading XRP pending further news. $ XRP withdrawals will remain activated until further notice. pic.twitter.com/lVVqXJPdPP
– Beaxy Exchange (@BeaxyExchange) December 22, 2020
At the time of writing, XRP was priced at $ 0.28 after falling 3.5% in the past 24 hours.
