US crypto exchange suspends XRP trading in light of SEC lawsuit

A major United States-based cryptocurrency exchange has halted all XRP trading on its platform in the wake of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ongoing lawsuit against Ripple Labs.

The PayBito exchange, which processed $1.1 billion worth of trades in 24 hours leading up to the time of publication, will suspend all XRP trading pairs, as announced on Feb.18. Four XRP trading pairs have historically been available on PayBito, with XRP/USDT trades proving the most popular.

Notably, the trading suspension will not affect users’ holdings, and those with coins held on the exchange will still be able to transfer them out of the platform, said PayBito managing director Raj Chowdhury:

“Our decision for suspending XRP trading will certainly not affect our users’ access to factors like security and compliance, thereby allowing them to transfer XRP’s from their wallets to other exchanges.”

PayBito said it would continue to monitor the ongoing legal dispute between the SEC and Ripple Labs, suggesting it could reinstate XRP trading depending on the outcome of the lawsuit.

In December 2020, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs, alleging that the sale of XRP coins constituted a violation of securities laws. Ripple Labs continues to deny the allegations and has since demanded that the SEC explain why XRP is classed as a security, while Ether (ETH) isn’t. Officials from the SEC had previously stated publicly that coins like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether were sufficiently decentralized so as to not represent security issuances.

PayBito joins a long list of major exchanges that have opted to steer clear from XRP while the lawsuit is underway. Binance.US, eToro, Coinbase, Bittrex and OKCoin have all either halted XRP trading or delisted the coin completely.