Bad news for Ripple? LBRY judge passes ruling on if secondary crypto sales are securities

cointelegraph.com:

Ripple may be holding its breath a bit longer after a United States District Judge refused to rule on if the secondary sale of LBRY Credits (LBC) constitutes a security.

On July 11, New Hampshire District Court Judge Paul Barbadoro made the ruling in the case the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought against the decentralized content platform LBRY.

The ruling may have offered legal precedent to fellow District Court Judge Analisa Torres, who is set to make a decision on the SEC’s case against Ripple in the coming months.

In his ruling, Judge Barbadoro said:

A secondary market is where traders buy and sell securities, while a primary market involves trading from the company issuing the security directly.

John Deaton, a U.S. lawyer representing thousands of XRP (XRP) token holders, tweeted on July 11 that he contacted Judge Barbadoro to seek clarity on if LBC constituted a security.

Judge Barabadoro ultimately decided to uphold his “judicial restraint,” Deaton said.

I asked the Judge to clarify that the token itself is not the security just as Judge Castel did in Telegram. He declined to do so because he said that specific issue wasn’t litigated and he believes in exercising judicial restraint. He wrote: “it suffices to say that merely… https://t.co/xR9AemS5Hq

Judge Barbadoro’s latest opinion is an about-turn from what he concluded in a January appeal hearing where Deaton persuaded him that the secondary sale of LBC doesn’t constitute a securities offering.

The New Hampshire Judge clarified in the appeal hearing that LBC is only considered a security when the sale is made directly.

The SEC also admitted that secondary market LBC sales don’t constitute a security.

While the SEC won a summary judgment in