In December 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs, the company behind the XRP token (XRP-USD), alleging that Ripple and its current and former chief executives had been conducting a $1.3 billion, unregistered securities offering by selling XRP, which Ripple's founders created in 2012. Ripple Labs is a registered American company, meaning that the SEC is able to pursue legal action against them, unlike bitcoin (BTC-USD), where the creator is unknown, or other big cryptocurrencies that are registered outside the U.S.