The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Binance Holdings Ltd. on Monday, citing 12 coins as unregistered securities. 

What Happened: The SEC lawsuit cites several altcoins, as securities under its purview. 

When added to other tokens like XRP, separately targeted by the SEC, the agency has now categorized over $115 billion worth of coins specifically as unregistered securities.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler has long maintained that most tokens are subject to the agency's investor protection laws and advocated for trading platforms to register with the regulator. But, labeling specific tokens represents a tougher approach. 

U.S. officials have intensified their crackdown on digital assets this year following a series of blowups, including the bankruptcy of the FTX exchange.

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Why It Matters: Although Gensler has said that Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), the largest cryptocurrency, isn’t covered by SEC securities rules, he's been less unequivocal on Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency.

In light of the recent development, some of the biggest crypto coins viewed as securities by the SEC, as reported by Bloomberg are:

Binance’s BNB (CRYPTO: BNB) ($44 billion)

• XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) ($27 billion)
• Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA) ($12 billion)
• Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) ($7.9 billion)
• Polygon (CRYPTO: MATIC) ($7.7 billion)
• Tron (CRYPTO: TRX) ($7.1 billion)
• Binance USD (CRYPTO: BUSD) ($5.1 billion)
• Cosmos (CRYPTO: ATOM) ($2.9 billion)
• Filecoin (CRYPTO: FIL) ($1.8 billion)
• Algorand (CRYPTO: ALGO) ($1 billion)

Price Action: At the time of writing, BTC was trading at $25,780.80, down 4.12%, in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.