Today, December 23, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officially took legal actions against Ripple Labs and its corporate executive Christian Larsen and the present CEO Brad Garlinghouse. The market authority claims that the Silicon Valley-based fintech has earned $1.3 B through undocumented securities offerings since 2013.
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SEC stated that Larsen and Garlinghouse helped to organize and promote XRP trading. They also managed individual illegal trades of XRP with a total amount of $600 M. Among cryptocurrencies, XRP ranks third by market capitalization, which is $20.7 B.
It comes after BTC and Ether, which US regulators consider not to be securities. This classification is built upon the decentralized character of these currencies not being controlled by a single company or individual. As for XRP, it couldn't get the same status.