Federal Judge Dismisses Jake Claver's XRP (XRP) Defamation Suit Under Anti-SLAPP Law

Federal Court Throws Out Defamation Claims

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington on September 2 dismissed a defamation lawsuit that XRP-focused influencer Jake Claver filed against content creator Zach Rector, closing a dispute that had divided parts of the XRP ecosystem. Judge Kymberly K. Evanson granted Rector's motion under Washington's Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, the state's anti-SLAPP statute built to shield speech on matters of public concern, and concluded that the three 2025 videos at issue contained no actionably false statements. Every claim fell — defamation, tortious interference, conspiracy and breach of contract — and all were dismissed without prejudice. Evanson further ruled that Rector may recover his attorneys' fees and litigation costs, a remedy tied to the suit's targeting of protected commentary. Rector confirmed the outcome in his own statement on X, noting the court found no false statement in his videos. Claver now has until September 23 to file an amended complaint if he chooses to press on. The ruling lands as XRP commentary — forecasts included — draws heightened scrutiny, with the token's standing among wealth managers already the subject of institutional survey coverage.

confirmed the outcome in his own statement on Xhttps://x.com/ZachRector7/status/2095284187163210105?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Verivend Admissions Anchored the Videos

The dismissed case turned on what Rector's videos actually alleged. The clips accused Claver — founder of Digital Ascension Group and Digital Wealth Partners — of financial misconduct, and their factual backbone came not from rumor but from Claver's own admissions in a separate New York lawsuit filed by payments processor Verivend Inc. Court documents in that proceeding show Claver acknowledged fabricating emails, wire transfer confirmations and a screenshot of a Verivend wallet dashboard depicting a false balance exceeding $1 million. The filings also record that he admitted impersonating Verivend employees on multiple occasions to manufacture fake email threads. Because the videos drew directly on sworn admissions from another case, the anti-SLAPP analysis reduced to a narrow question: whether restating documented court admissions could ever constitute an actionable falsehood. Evanson's order effectively answered no. For readers tracking the dispute, the sequence matters — the decisive evidence was never contested journalistic sourcing but the plaintiff's own prior judicial record, which shaped how the Washington court weighed the public-interest character of the commentary.

Atozy Precedent and Community Response

The outcome echoes a familiar pattern in crypto defamation litigation. In 2022, BitBoy Crypto founder Ben Armstrong sued YouTuber Erling Mengshoel Jr., known as Atozy, over a video accusing him of promoting a failed token during the last bull market. Armstrong voluntarily withdrew the case within weeks after Atozy crowdfunded more than $200,000 for his defense and public backlash mounted — but no judge ever ruled, so that episode set no formal precedent. Claver's case went further and still collapsed at the motion stage. Reaction inside the wider XRP community was swift: several observers framed the ruling as vindication of Rector's reporting and a warning against deploying defamation claims to silence critics. One commentator argued that converting price-call criticism into a $30 million federal fight, only to have the speech ruled protected, “reflects more on the plaintiff” than on the videos. The dispute also arrives as attention on XRP price targets intensifies — including Google Gemini AI's $2.75 base case for January 2027 — sharpening the stakes for how market commentary is policed. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Gate.

September 23 Amended-Complaint Window

Read together, the threads point to one conclusion COINOTAG draws from the order itself: the docket entry in the Western District of Washington — a dismissal on anti-SLAPP grounds under RCW 4.105, paired with a fee award — establishes that commentary grounded in documented court admissions enjoys robust protection, and that plaintiffs who sue critics over it risk carrying the critics' legal bills. Whether Claver files an amended complaint by September 23 will determine if the fight continues, though the fee exposure now cuts against him. For a community that treats every legal signal as sentiment fuel, the dismissal removes a distraction rather than supplying a catalyst: on spot trading venues, XRP's price moved 3.1% over the past 24 hours, while institutional groundwork — including BIS testing of the XRP Ledger for official statistics — proceeds independently of the courtroom drama.