Cointelegraph announces a $50 million settlement between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Labs, concluding a high-profile lawsuit over XRP’s alleged unregistered securities sales, which began in December 2020 when the SEC claimed Ripple raised $1.3 billion illegally.
This settlement reduces the penalty from an earlier $125 million fine imposed in August 2024, following a July 2023 ruling by Judge Analisa Torres that XRP sold on public exchanges isn’t a security, though institutional sales violated securities laws, a decision both parties agreed not to appeal further.
The resolution, pending Judge Torres’s approval, lifts an injunction on Ripple and returns remaining escrow funds, marking a shift in SEC oversight as recent actions under new leadership show leniency toward crypto firms, evidenced by settled cases against Coinbase and Kraken in 2025.
