The XRP Army has long claimed to be more than just a noisy retail crowd.

Now, with Ripple’s four-year battle against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission closed, both the judge and Ripple’s lawyers are saying they made a difference.

Crypto lawyer John Deaton, who filed an amicus brief on behalf of holders, said in a Wednesday X post that anyone denying their role “is either ignorant of the facts and truth or intentionally lying.”

Judge Analisa Torres cited Deaton’s filings, XRP holder affidavits, and even arguments he made in a separate LBRY case when ruling that XRP itself is not a security.

“Had she not cited those things, people could legitimately debate whether our efforts made a real difference. But the proof is in the decision itself,” Deaton said.

Executives inside Ripple agree. Deborah McCrimmon, Ripple’s deputy general counsel, told The Penta Podcast on Monday that the XRP Army’s unpaid research was invaluable. Ripple had leaned on a “fair notice” defense, arguing the SEC failed to give clarity on how crypto laws applied.

“We were looking for speeches, talks, things the SEC or the government had said related to blockchain, crypto, XRP, Ripple, and the XRP Army mined that for us,” McCrimmon said. “I could have paid lawyers thousands of dollars to do that, and yet they were finding it and posting it on Twitter.”

The SEC sued Ripple in 2020, accusing it of raising funds through an unregistered securities sale. The case dragged on for years, becoming a litmus test for how regulators would treat secondary sales of crypto tokens.

In July 2023, Judge Torres ruled that XRP sold on exchanges did not qualify as securities, while some institutional sales did. The mixed decision gave Ripple breathing room but stopped short of a full win.

The legal fight officially ended in August when both sides dropped appeals. By then, XRP had already delivered traders some of its wildest swings in years. The token spiked 72% after the 2023 ruling, jumping from $0.47 to $0.81. It ripped to an all-time high of $3.65 in July this year before settling back.

XRP trades near $2.85, down nearly 1% in the past 24 hours.