Ripple Wins Another XRP Lawsuit: Court Throws Out Class Action

Ripple scored one other courtroom win tied to XRP gross sales, after the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed abstract judgment towards traders who alleged the corporate bought unregistered securities, ruling the federal Securities Act claims have been time-barred by the statute of repose.

In a not-for-publication memorandum filed Jan. 27, 2026, a three-judge panel upheld the Northern District of California’s choice that the three-year repose interval in Section 13 of the Securities Act had already run by the point the category motion was filed.

Ripple Wins: Court Punts XRP Securities Claims

The case was led by Bradley Sostack, who bought XRP in January 2018 on Poloniex. The underlying class complaint was filed later in 2018; Sostack was appointed lead plaintiff in 2019 and amended the complaint in 2020.

At the middle of the attraction was when XRP was “bona fide supplied to the general public” for functions of the Securities Act’s repose clock. The ruling sided with Ripple, pointing to early XRP distribution and buying and selling exercise tied to the XRP Ledger’s built-in trade.

“According to the document on this case, Ripple was providing XRP to the general public as early as 2013. It is undisputed that Ripple bought over 500 million XRP on the Ledger’s built-in digital asset trade. Those presents have been made ‘to the general public’ even when solely technologically refined shoppers might navigate the Ledger to buy XRP.”

That framing mattered as a result of Section 13’s statute of repose is unforgiving: as soon as the three years run from the primary public providing, later consumers can’t revive a federal Section 12(a)(1) registration declare by submitting years afterward. The district court docket had reached the identical conclusion in its June 20, 2024 abstract judgment order on the federal class claims.

Sostack’s main effort to keep away from the time bar was to argue Ripple’s conduct in 2017, when the corporate started releasing its XRP holdings in monthly tranches, amounted to a separate, later providing (or successfully a brand new funding contract) that ought to restart the clock.

The panel rejected that try to separate the timeline, emphasizing the character of the asset itself and the absence of a factual dispute that the 2013 and 2017 exercise needs to be handled as distinct choices.

“But Sostack has failed to lift a cloth difficulty of indisputable fact that the 2013 providing and the 2017 providing have been separate choices. The nature of XRP didn’t change between 2013 and 2017; all XRP cryptocurrency remained fungible and interchangeable.”

With no separate-offering discovering, the panel held the repose interval started with the 2013 public providing, leaving the 2018/2019 filings exterior the window and affirming judgment for Ripple. The choice can be procedurally slim: as a result of the district court docket’s Rule 54(b) certification coated solely sure claims, the Ninth Circuit stated it was limiting its ruling accordingly.

At press time, XRP traded at $1.88.