Lawyer Explains Why SEC Case Can No Longer Be an Excuse for XRP Price

According to data from CoinDesk, XRP trades at $1.33, roughly 62.5% below its January 2018 peak. Bitcoin has gained +314% from that same benchmark. Ethereum is up +66%. BNB sits at +2,818%. The gap between XRP and its peers is stark, and it is generating pointed commentary from analysts across the industry.

He added that XRP had surpassed Ethereum in price and was closing in on Bitcoin before what he described as coordinated attacks on the asset. He also reported a message he received at the Evernorth listing on NASDAQ from conversations with Ripple: “All roadblocks have been removed.”

Bill Morgan Pushes Back on the Lawsuit Narrative

Australian lawyer and digital asset commentator Bill Morgan responded with a more critical take. Morgan argued that the SEC litigation no longer holds up as an explanation for XRP’s price performance.

“The lawsuit cannot be an excuse all the time for XRP’s current price,” Morgan wrote. “That excuse is getting quite old.”

Morgan noted that XRP has fallen 45% over the past 12 months and approximately 60% since Ripple and the SEC resolved their legal battle on 7 August 2025. He said the settlement produced no lasting price recovery.

“It seems the settlement of the lawsuit caused no lasting positive effect on price,” Morgan wrote.

He acknowledged that positive lawsuit developments did lift XRP’s price in the short term but said those gains were consistently erased. He noted that expectations of a settlement drove more market activity in the months before August 2025 than the actual resolution did. However, most of those gains have since been erased over the past 13 months.

A Maturing Market Demands More Than Legal Wins

Morgan described the lawsuit as “always an overrated and exaggerated excuse” in his view. His position is that XRP’s price performance must now stand on fundamentals, adoption, and utility rather than on legal outcomes.

The data supports his skepticism. While much of the crypto market has recovered and surpassed its 2017–2018 cycle highs, XRP remains the only major token on CoinDesk’s comparative chart still trading well below its peak from that period.

Whether the removal of the legal obstacles identified by Ripple will translate into a sustained price recovery remains uncertain.