Next American crypto exchange suspends trading of XRP

The legal battle over the Ripple cryptocurrency is apparently also too hot a potato for PayBito

Another major American crypto exchange has halted trading of the controversial cryptocurrency XRP on its platform, in connection with the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) ongoing lawsuit against crypto payment service provider and issuer Ripple.

Crypto exchange PayBito, which has seen trading volumes of US$1.1 billion in the last 24 hours, is suspending trading of all XRP currency pairs from 18 February. Previously, four different Bitcoin Pro currency pairs were available for the Ripple cryptocurrency, of which XRP/USDT was the most popular.

However, the trading halt has no impact on users‘ existing XRP assets, moreover, they can continue to withdraw their funds to other platforms without any problems, as PayBito manager Raj Chowdhury confirms:

„The trading halt on XRP has in no way disadvantaged our users, which is why they can continue to transfer their XRP from their wallets to other crypto exchanges.“

PayBito plans to closely monitor the legal battle between the SEC and Ripple and resume XRP trading if necessary, should the ruling go its way.

XRP is classified as a security

In December, the US Securities and Exchange Commission had filed charges against Ripple because it sees XRP as a security, which in turn would mean that Ripple had engaged in an unlawful sale of securities by issuing the cryptocurrency. However, the crypto company rejects this reading, which is why it most recently asked the SEC to clarify why XRP is classified as a security but Ether (ETH) is not. In the past, the authorities had argued that Ether and Bitcoin (BTC) are sufficiently decentralised so that the two market-leading cryptocurrencies are not securities.

PayBito thus joins a number of major crypto exchanges that are distancing themselves from XRP in the wake of the indictment, including Binance.US, eToro, Coinbase, Bittrex and OKCoin.