Founder San

Intérêt américain pour le minage de crypto-monnaies à la centrale nucléaire contestée de Zaporizhzhia suscite un débat géopolitique
Les développements récents dans le conflit en cours entre la Russie et l'Ukraine ont mis en avant un sujet inhabituel dans le domaine de la cryptoeconomie et de la diplomatie internationale : l'utilisation potentielle de la centrale nucléaire de Zaporizhzhia (ZNPP) pour des opérations de minage de cryptomonnaie.
Contexte : L'importance stratégique de la ZNPP
La centrale nucléaire de Zaporizhzhia, située près d'Enerhodar dans le sud-est de l'Ukraine, est la plus grande installation nucléaire d'Europe et a joué un rôle central dans le réseau électrique ukrainien avant l'occupation militaire de la Russie en mars 2022.

Ripple has formally urged the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to reconsider how securities laws are applied to digital assets, arguing that regulators must clearly separate crypto tokens themselves from the transactions or contracts that may involve them. According to Ripple, failing to make this distinction risks misapplying decades-old securities laws to modern blockchain markets in ways that stifle innovation and create regulatory confusion.

In a detailed submission to the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, Ripple’s legal team warned that the current regulatory approach could effectively treat all crypto trading — including high-volume secondary market activity — as securities transactions simply because tokens are being bought and sold. Ripple argues that this logic ignores a fundamental legal principle: assets are not securities by default; contracts and promises can be.

Instead, Ripple recommends that regulatory oversight should hinge on the presence of enforceable legal rights and obligations, such as explicit contractual commitments, profit-sharing agreements, or managerial promises made by an issuer to investors. In the absence of such obligations, Ripple contends, secondary market trading should not automatically fall under securities regulation, even if speculation is involved.

The letter, signed by Ripple’s senior legal leadership and submitted on January 9, 2026, calls on the SEC to adopt a rights-based regulatory framework. This approach would distinguish between the initial issuance of an investment contract and the subsequent trading of a crypto asset that may no longer be tied to any ongoing promises or centralized control. Ripple argues that without this distinction, market participants are left guessing about compliance obligations, increasing legal risk across the entire crypto ecosystem.

Ripple also criticized the SEC’s reliance on vague or inconsistent concepts such as “decentralization,” noting that the lack of a clear legal definition makes enforcement unpredictable. According to the company, using subjective criteria to determine whether an asset is a security could result in uneven enforcement and inadvertently pull ordinary peer-to-peer crypto transactions into securities law — even when no investment contract exists.

To illustrate its position, Ripple compared digital assets to commodities such as gold or silver. While these commodities are actively traded and often speculated upon, they are not classified as securities because their trading does not inherently involve contractual promises from an issuer. Ripple argues that many crypto assets function similarly in secondary markets and should be treated accordingly.

The submission comes amid broader debates in the United States over how digital assets should be regulated, as lawmakers, regulators, and industry participants push for clearer statutory guidance. With multiple legislative proposals under discussion, Ripple’s letter adds to growing pressure on regulators to modernize financial rules for the digital asset era while preserving investor protections.

As regulatory clarity remains one of the biggest challenges facing the crypto industry, Ripple’s stance reflects a wider call from market participants: regulate conduct and contracts — not the technology itself.

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