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Usually, I don't take news or actions that have negative consequences for specific projects as something people should be concerned about when looking at crypto as a whole. Unless they own that asset in which case they probably already know about it. But there are cases, like this one, where the outcome can have a ripple effect (pun intended) on every other project. No matter if it's similar in style, or function, or whatever else, to XRP.
So, for anyone that doesn't know. A quick TL;DR - The SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commision) sued XRP (the crypto) as a security. Most crypto does not define itself as a security, cause of the way in which securities are usually determined and, unfortunately, regulated. Due to this, if the SEC were to win this case, they could use the same exact lawsuit as a case for any other cryptocurrency that has had an ICO (which is a lot of the top 100 and further). Therefore, those same assets would be regulated.
Now, there are a million different standpoints on whether crypto is or isn't a security. Anyone with a brain however knows that crypto obviously can not be a security. This dude on Reddit explained it nicely:
Crypto is not a security or a commodity, it is its own set of assets. XRP is not a security because anyone can own XRP with anonymity. A stock has your name written says you own it. But crypto is different. Why do you think you can own a fraction of any coin? You can even burn XRP by sending it to a nonexistent address, you can't just burn stock shares. It isn't a commodity because it has no intrinsic value; it's just bits stacked on a blockchain. But crypto has value because of the people willing to exchange monetary value for it, and the miners and validators who keep this system running. XRP is a cryptocurrency just how you can call a stock a security and how you can call gold a commodity.
I've mentioned the effect on assets that have had ICO's, so why should everyone else care. Well frankly, seeing as so many of the top projects had ICO's (including ETH), the effect on the overall market could be catastrophic as the movement of the top crypto can swing even the most isolated of projects into a downturn. This might not come immediately, but could come as the SEC starts new lawsuits afterwards.
There is however a point to be made that since XRP was a 100% pre-mined coin, and therefore not comparable to most other ICO's as XRP might as well be a security with the offering they had. If we look at it that way, the lawsuit might effect us in the short term but would be dependent on the success of other projects managing to beat the SEC by distancing themselves from how Ripple handled their coin.
So when you look at it, if Ripple wins, crypto is safe for the time being. If not, other projects could still manage to beat the SEC instead; or they will all end up losing which is a worst case scenario in which the wave or red befalls us all. We've gone through worse tho so I think we'll end up doing just fine.
And as a last one, this is just the US, it is the largest market but it's still just one country so in no way would crypto fall out completely. I just wanted to bring peoples attention to how important this might end up being.
