Analysts at American multinational financial services giant JPMorgan said in a report that the Hinman documents released last week in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s legal tussle with the blockchain payments firm Ripple would likely trigger more decentralization in the crypto realm.

The research report, seen by CoinDesk, further noted that the documents provide a significant advantage for ether (ETH), the second largest crypto asset by market cap.

A Boost for Ether

The Hinman documents are internal messages and emails related to former Director of Corporation Finance William Hinman’s 2018 speech on ETH being akin to a commodity. Hinman said then ETH did not look like a security even though it may have started as one. He explained that such assets could become commodities once sufficiently decentralized.

On June 13, Ripple used statements in the documents to defend the SEC’s allegations in the ongoing lawsuit. Since December 2020, the U.S. regulator has insisted that the sale of XRP – the network’s native token – was an unregistered securities offering, as it met the criteria required to pass the Howey test.

Over time, Ripple has stood its ground on XRP not being a security. The firm asserted that the token was sold in the same manner as ETH when founded and, thus, should be recognized as a commodity too. Both parties have submitted several motions, making it difficult for the court to pass a verdict.

The JPMorgan analysts, led by Nikolas Panigirtzoglou, said SEC officials have admitted that the presence of tokens on a “sufficiently decentralized network,” which canno