Ripple played Trump to pump XRP — now he's cutting ties
A scoop by Politico on Thursday revealed the cause of an intraday price surge of XRP on March 2. That morning, XRP was charting in a tight range around $2.23. However, at 10:24am, Donald Trump announced that he would create a US “crypto strategic reserve,” including XRP and two other altcoins, and within 75 minutes, XRP had rallied 24% to $3 per token. In other words, thanks to Trump’s blessing, XRP had gained $44 billion in 75 minutes to hit a market capitalization of $173 billion. Lobbying efforts seemingly helped XRP gain $44 billion in 75 minutes. Trump would later add a follow-up post to his XRP announcement, adding bitcoin (BTC) and ether to the list of XRP, ADA, and SOL for a total of five named assets. By that point, though, the market had already traded higher for one reason. Everyone knew that Trump’s pick of XRP as one of only three named digital assets in his first post was the reason for XRP’s $44 billion rally. What wasn’t known at the time,...