On May 23, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, announced that customers in the state of New York could once again trade XRP on the crypto exchange after a nine-month hiatus.
In a brief social media post, Grewal provided an update: “XRP trading on Coinbase is available again in NY. We heard you and put in the work in strong partnership with the State. And now the word can be put out— we are back up.”
Following the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) lawsuit against Ripple in 2020, XRP (XRP) remained an embattled asset, facing scrutiny from government regulators and centralized exchanges alike.
Many centralized exchanges, including Coinbase, Bittrex and Binance.US, delisted XRP after the SEC accused Ripple Labs of selling unregistered securities.
These same exchanges reversed course and relisted the digital asset after Judge Analisa Torres ruled in 2023 that secondary sales of XRP did not constitute securities sales.
At the time, Coinbase made headlines for relisting the token as XRP investors and speculators waited eagerly for other large exchanges to relist the asset.
However, despite the court’s ruling and the token’s relisting on U.S. platforms, XRP continued to face regulatory hurdles in some jurisdictions and localities, such as Japan and New York.
In September 2023, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) removed Ripple Labs from its “Greenlist” of companies approved to custody customer assets, forcing Coinbase to suspend trading of XRP for New York residents.
Crypto firms and other entities seeking to act as custodians for customer funds in New York must apply and be individually approved by NYDFS to retain the right to act as an asset custodian within the state.
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XRP’s price seemed to react positively to the news, placing upward pressure on the daily candle and shifting the price from $0.51 to nearly $0.53 at the time of this writing.
Despite this, XRP’s price has struggled with steady downward price action since its most recent high of $0.74, formed on March 12, 2024.