TL;DR

• The SEC dropped its appeal, seemingly marking the end of its lawsuit against Ripple, though certain legal matters remain unresolved.

• Lawyers debate whether Ripple should appeal its $125M fine, with some warning it could be a risky move.

Was This The End?

After more than four years of court battles, countless rulings, and developments, the lawsuit between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has finally reached its conclusion. The company’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, announced the breaking news, stating that the agency has dropped its appeal, which means the case “has ended and it’s over.” 

The disclosure triggered huge excitement across the XRP army, and many X users started celebrating the victory. However, some legal experts noted that the lawsuit has technically not yet been concluded.

The US lawyer Jeremy Hogan (who has been following the case’s development over the past few years) suggested the “bad stuff” is over, but Ripple can now prolong the battle in different ways.

He pointed out the $125 million fine that Judge Torres ordered on the company last year for violating certain securities laws. According to Hogan, there are four possible scenarios from here on.

First, he thinks Ripple can continue its appeal to the penalty and “get a ruling from an appellate court on whether investment contracts require contracts.” Second, the firm might agree to drop its appeal, and then both parties could try to amend the judgment.

The third option includes the two sides entering a mutual agreement without attempting to change Judge Torres’ ruling. Lastly, Hogan believes Ripple might decide to pay the multi-million fine “and move on.”

The Appeal Seems Like an ‘Unnecessary Gamble’

Another popular attorney who touched upon the matter was Fred Rispoli. He described Ripple’s potential appeal as an “unnecessary gamble” for three important reasons. 

First, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit can rule against the company, which could cause serious reputational damage. He also believes that federal legislation “can essentially erase the loss.”

Last but not least, Rispoli claimed that Ripple has already claimed that its operations did not engage in any of the activities that were previously deemed illegal. 

“But: Maintaining it for now IS the legal “consideration” that would sufficiently justify reducing $125M penalty in exchanging for dropping appeal,” he added.

Although the Fed didn’t lower the interest rates, bitcoin’s price actually reacted well following the meeting and shot up to a multi-week peak of over $87,500 where it faced some resistance.

Many altcoins are also well in the green, led by XRP after Ripple’s victory in the legal case against the US SEC.

BTC Above $85K

Last week didn’t go all that well for the largest cryptocurrency, but it had managed to recover some ground by the time the weekend arrived and stood calmly at around $84,000. Following some volatility on Sunday due to large short positions on Hyperliquid, the asset was rejected at $85,000 at the start of the current business week and slumped to $81,200 on Tuesday.

Nevertheless, it recovered two grand by Wednesday in anticipation of the second FOMC meeting for the year. Once that took place and it became known that the US Fed would not change the key interest rates, BTC reacted with immediate volatility, going up and down by $1,000.

Ultimately, though, the cryptocurrency spiked in the following hours and tapped $87,500 for the first time since March 7. It has failed to maintain its run and now sits below $86,000, but it’s still 2.5% up on the day.

Its market capitalization has risen to $1.7 trillion on CG, while its dominance over the alts has taken another minor hit and is down to 58.4%.

XRP on the Rise

The other big news affecting the crypto market yesterday was the statement by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who said on X that the US SEC would drop its legal case against the company he runs after more than four years. The native token reacted immediately, with a price surge from $2.3 to $2.6 before retracing to around $2.5.

Other notable gainers from the larger-cap alts include SOL (5%), SUI (5.5%), and UNI (8%). ETH, BNB, ADA, DOGE, LINK, and XLM are also in the green but in a more modest fashion.

The total crypto market cap has added around $70 billion since yesterday and is up to $2.9 trillion on CG.

Coinbase has released its first Ethereum Validator Performance Report, providing a detailed breakdown of its staking operations.

It shows that the platform operates 120,000 validators, with 3.84 million ETH staked to them, representing 11.42% of the total staked supply. An additional 581,500 ETH is also staked through its partners.

99.75% Validator Uptime and Zero Slashing

“We’re excited to announce our first Ethereum Validator Performance Report, marking a new level of transparency in our ETH staking operations,” the company stated in a March 19 post on X.

According to the report, the platform has maintained zero cases of slashing or double signing since its validators began operating.

In February 2025, they recorded an average uptime of 99.75%, exceeding the 99% uptime target. The platform attributes this performance to a structural upgrade made last year, which enables beacon node maintenance without downtime. Further, it revealed that it does not pursue 99.9% uptime, as it prioritizes security over additional gains that could introduce slashing risks.

The validator participation rate, which tracks the execution of consensus duties, also stood at 99.75% in February. According to the exchange, its stakers successfully proposed blocks through MEV relays and participated in sync committees, which helped light clients synchronize with the blockchain.

To support decentralization, Coinbase distributes them across five countries including, Japan, Singapore, Ireland, Germany, and Hong Kong. The platform also uses two cloud providers, AWS and GCP. This ensures redundancy, mitigates failure risks, and accommodates regulatory requirements.

According to the exchange, if a prolonged outage occurs in a region or cloud provider, its validator orchestration system can migrate workloads with minimal downtime. This system has also been used for scheduled maintenance and customer-driven migrations.

Client Diversity and Relay Diversification

Client diversity is another part of the staking strategy. Coinbase’s Ethereum validators run two consensus clients (Lighthouse, Prysm) and two execution clients (Geth, Nethermind). It also monitors network-wide client distribution and is evaluating additional implementations to expand the customer range further.

The company also uses relay diversification to optimize staking rewards and reduce centralization risks. Participants connect to six MEV relays, including Flashbots MEV-Boost Relay, bloXroute Max Profit Relay, and four non-censoring relays including, ultra-sound relay, Agnostic Relay, Aestus MEV-Boost Relay, and Titan Relay. This structure enhances redundancy and broadens access to block pools.