Ripple recently won an unmistakable monetary victory in a class-action securities lawsuit, with the judge dismissing most of the lawsuit. But the judge also confused the spotlight on a larger issue by suggesting that XRP could be a security and therefore require tighter regulation, a departure from last year's high-profile ruling. The contradictory rulings by the two judges - one called XRP a security, the other said it was essentially not - are symptomatic of a larger problem: the lack of legal and regulatory clarity in the U.S. cryptocurrency industry. Unless Congress or a higher court makes a clear ruling, projects like Ripple could become even more chaotic. Moish Peltz, a partner at Falcon, Rappaport and Berkman, a New York law firm, explains: "The question of whether XRP is a security has not been resolved, at least for this collateral cause of action."