Crypto lawyer and amicus curiae in the SEC-Ripple lawsuit, John E. Deaton recently replied to an X handle ‘@jungleincX’. The twitter handle asked Deaton about the announcement he was going to make. In response Deaton posted his picture with a caption ‘1) the photo below; the XRPL; the ETH ICO’.
Only because my friend Jungle asked.
Here are 3 Hints:1) the photo below;
2) the #XRPL;
3) the #ETH ICO https://t.co/HFvva35m9n pic.twitter.com/VTyiKg91z4
— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) September 22, 2023
While the tweet had already made clear what the announcement was about, hours ago Deaton retweeted Steven Nerayoff’s post in which the former Ethereum network official announced his return. Deaton quoted the tweet ‘Stay tuned…’.
It could not have been made more clear that Deaton is hosting Steven Nerayoff on his podcast.
Steven Nerayoff is a former advisor at Ethereum network who was charged by a US federal agency for extortion, together with an Ethereum employee named Michael Hlady. While Hlady pled guilty in April 2021, Nerayoff maintained his innocence.
The US Court eventually dropped charges against Nerayoff in May 2023. Throughout the proceedings Nerayoff’s lawyers levelled many allegations on US investigators. One such allegation was that the day Nerayoff was arrested by the FBI, he was handed a paper with some top crypto executives’ names on it. The FBI, Nerayoff’s lawyers alleged, asked him to give some inside information about the crypto executives that could later be used to file lawsuits.
It is notable that Ripple is currently fighting a SEC lawsuit and in that context the upcoming podcast is going to be very interesting. Ripple already alleges the SEC of threatening crypto firm’s to bring them in line with their self-serving policies.
Top Ripple executives have criticised SEC Chairman Gary Gensler on many occasions. Ripple’s lead council Stuart Alderoty just yesterday retweeted a Bloomberg Crypto post on which Gary Gensler was heard saying that the securities laws apply to crypto and they would save the investors from getting bribed. Alderoty commented:
“What’s most concerning to me (and should be to you) in the full video clip is the shocking admission of an unelected bureaucrat that he won’t respect the decisions of the Courts.”
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