Coinbase said it will suspend trading of XRP, the cryptocurrency that the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed last week claiming it is. Really safe.

Coinbase first listed XRP on its retail-facing platform in February 2019. Starting now, XRP trading is “only going to the limit,” Coinbase writes. It will be suspended in full on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, at 1 PM ET.

„We will continue to monitor legal developments related to XRP and update our clients as more information becomes available,” wrote Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer. Blog post It is previously shared with CoinDesk.

Coinbase said users’ XRP wallets „will still be available to receive and withdraw jobs after trading is suspended.”

Notably, the exchange said it would still support the upcoming airdrop of Spark tokens for XRP holders. XRP will still be backed by Coinbase Custody and Coinbase’s self-guarding wallet.

Coinbase declined to comment other than its written statement.

price XRP on Coinbase $ 0.28 to $ 0.24 for the first 20 minutes of the ad. Since the SEC’s lawsuit was announced, the price of XRP has decreased by more than 50%.

For Coinbase, the reason for dropping XRP as a traded asset was simple: As the company seeks a public offering, being a platform for something potentially secure means simply adding more paperwork so retail customers can be legally allowed to buy and sell a single cryptocurrency.

The Securities and Exchange Commission claimed last week that XRP It is safeAnd that Ripple was selling it without registering or seeking a seven-year waiver, raising $ 1.3 billion in the process. The legal battle itself is just beginning, and the litigation could take years if Ripple goes to court the charge, she points out.

Coinbase is now the largest exchange operating on XRP and can serve as a flagship for other platforms. On Friday, Bitstamp announced that it will stop trading XRP and deposits for all US clients on January 8th.

Likewise, San Francisco-based OKCoin announced the suspension of XRP earlier on Monday, effective January 4.

Exchanges that continue to list XRP without registering as a stock exchange with the SEC face potential consequences in the future, including potential enforcement actions. However, if Ripple prevails in its defense, Coinbase will likely re-list XRP fairly easily.

„Cryptocurrency exchanges are not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (by choice, as registration carries many burdens and increases costs) and therefore it is in their interest not to offer securities trading. It’s for their own protection, not for their clients,” said Alex Krueger, trader and analyst. „.

Gabriel Shapiro, an attorney at Belcher, Smolen & Van Loo LLP, told CoinDesk earlier this week that the question of whether to take stock exchanges off the list is a complex one, with both commercial and legal considerations.

Update (Dec 28, 22:54 UTC): Adds XRP price reaction.