A weekend lobbyist won over Trump, scored $44 billion for XRP

A scoop by Politico on Thursday revealed the cause of an intraday price surge of XRP on March 2.

An interesting tidbit from the world of crypto and politics! A recent scoop by Politico unveiled how a female employee at Brian Ballard's lobbying firm, currently a client of Ripple, enticed Donald Trump into making a post on Truth Social that ultimately led to a $44 billion surge in XRP's market capitalization.

Apparently, the lobbyist, working on a request from a client, engaged Trump in conversation at Mar-a-Lago, persistently suggesting that he post about crypto. After days of persistence, Trump finally agreed, and his staffer posted it on his behalf.

However, it seems Trump later grew wary of the situation, especially since no one told him about the "unspeakable conflict of interest"—the female employee was a paid lobbyist for Ripple at the time.

Aides said Trump was furious and began ranting to staff, adding that Ballard "is not welcome in anything anymore." Protos has reached out to Ripple for comment on Ballard Partners.

Now, let's put that $44 billion gain in perspective. At the time, Ballard's firm was making less than $60 million a year from lobbying. So, the value of Trump's post in driving up the price of XRP, ultimately benefitting Ripple, was truly immense.

It appears Trump recognized this error later on, as he ordered the administration to sell, not buy, XRP, and focused solely on bitcoin for purchasing activity.

The post Trump, fibs and a $44 billion cryptocurrency heist: How a lobbyist scored big-time for a client appeared first on Protos.

As the price chart above shows, that action benefited Ripple tremendously. At the time, Ballard's firm was annualizing less than $60 million in revenue, while its actions helped XRP rally $44 billion in market capitalization. The value was unmatchable.

Later on, Trump tried to course-correct by relegating XRP to a sell-only stockpile and choosing BTC alone for the nation's ability to purchase new coins. Of all people, Trump certainly hates feeling used.

Still, the price of XRP has quadrupled since Trump assumed the presidency, so it seems the political benefit has not worn off entirely.

The incident wasn't the first time XRP benefited from political events. Both Ripple and its executives have been political donors for years.

On November 15, 2024, XRP rallied 17% intraday on unconfirmed reporting that Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse met with then-President-elect Trump.

XRP also directly benefited from Trump's promise to fire Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler. On March 19, XRP experienced a significant price surge after Garlinghouse announced that the SEC would drop its multi-year lawsuit against Ripple.

Of course, Ripple hasn't always been Republican-aligned, despite its recent lobbying efforts to benefit from the Trump 2.0 administration.

Prior to Trump, many people viewed Ripple not as red but as Democrat blue. Indeed, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen personally donated $11 million worth of XRP to Kamala Harris' campaign.

On July 13, 2023, Barack Obama-nominated U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres changed Gary Gensler's career forever. Torres forced Gensler, who was overseeing a landmark securities violation lawsuit against Ripple, to take a decisive step back as he wound down his tenure towards his ultimate resignation ahead of Trump's promise to fire him.

On that day, Torres ruled that certain sales of XRP weren't securities, causing the market cap of XRP to double intraday from $25 to $50 billion.

In his last filing as SEC head, Gensler wrote that he still thought many XRP transactions were a securities offerings. Then he quit.

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