The crypto currency is coming hard and fast ahead of next month's election.
The latest comes from Ripple's founder and executive chairman, Chris Larson, who said that he has given another $10 million in XRP, the seventh largest digital asset by market value, to support the campaign of US Vice President Kamala Harris.
Ripple is verified Decrypt In a tweet about the cause, Larson made a personal donation. The New York Times reported Sunday that Larson donated $10 million to Future Forward, a prominent Democratic PAC, in a record-setting fundraising quarter for the Harris campaign and affiliated organizations. Larson tweeted confirmation of the report that the donation was made in XRP.
“It's time for Democrats to take a new approach to tech innovation, including cryptocurrency,” he wrote.
Earlier this month, FEC filings show that Chris Larson donated $1 million worth of XRP worth 1,754,815.29 XRP to the same PAC in August. A Ripple Labs representative confirmed to Decrypt that the recent $10 million private donation to the PAC did not include the previous batch of XRP.
Larson helped found Ripple, a fintech company that wants to make it easier for businesses to move money across borders. He also co-founded XRPSeventh largest digital coin by market cap. Although Ripple uses XRP for its services, the company and XRP operate separately.
Ripple's relationship with the government has traditionally been combative, and the company made headlines last year when it partially won a long-running lawsuit against it by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The SEC was hit with a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Ripple in 2020 – accusing the company of selling unregistered securities to investors to raise money in the form of the cryptocurrency XRP.
But last year the judge Purchased Programmatic sales of XRP to retail investors did not qualify as securities on cryptocurrency exchanges.
The judge ruled that the corporate sale of $728 million worth of tokens was an unregistered securities sale, but the overall ruling was interpreted as a win for Ripple and the entire crypto industry. Ripple and the SEC are still engaged in the appeals process.
Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse weighed in on Larson's latest donation in a Twitter response, citing the company's ongoing fight with the regulator.
“I respect Chris's (and everyone else's!) right to support who they think is best to lead America. We need to quickly divert from this administration's misguided war on crypto,” Garlinghouse tweeted. “Ripple will continue to engage with both Democrats and Republicans in the final days of the campaign (and after the election) to advance pro-crypto policies. It's not about party lines; it's about advancing policies that promote blockchain and crypto innovation.”
Ahead of next month's election, Republican candidate Donald Trump has emerged as a more crypto-friendly candidate—and he's gotten a lot of money from the industry as a result.
The Harris campaign has recently started talking about how it will help the ecosystem in the US.
Edited by Andrew Hayward.
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