Ripple Labs’ chief legal officer, Stuart Alderotti, has donated $300,000 worth of XRP to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, according to CNBC. a reportThe donation was made on June 11, 2024, and only became public yesterday. Notably, Aldroti recently attended a fundraising event for Trump hosted by investor David Sachs in San Francisco.
Possible Motives Behind Ripple CLO Donation
The transaction involved Alderoty sending 624,000 XRP to the Trump campaign, which was later converted to the stablecoin USDC, reflecting an exchange rate of around $0.48 per XRP. Trump therefore no longer held any XRP. However, the conversion was standard procedure. “President Trump’s campaign is adopting a standard procedure of converting all cryptocurrency received into USDC,” former FOX News analyst James Delmore said.
The contribution comes at a time when Trump has been noticeably pro-crypto, which may have influenced Alderotti’s decision to donate. However, unlike the Winklevoss twins, Alderotti has not publicly disclosed the reasons for his contribution. Ripple has been embroiled in a legal dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), led by its chairman Gary Gensler, for more than three and a half years.
There is a general belief that if Trump is re-elected, he will replace the SEC chairman with a cryptocurrency advocate. This change could serve a strategic purpose behind Alderotti’s donation: supporting the replacement of Gary Gensler. With a new chairman, pro-crypto legislation and clearer regulations could become more likely, which could positively impact the ongoing legal dispute between Ripple and the SEC.
The new SEC under Trump is likely to drop the case against Ripple or avoid escalating it to higher courts in the event of an unfavorable ruling. Thus, a Trump presidency paints a positive future for Ripple, potentially allowing the company to operate in the United States without restrictions and expanding the deployment of XRP-based services to the United States.
Cryptocurrency Industry Unites for Trump
Ripple CLO joins a long list of crypto industry donors to Trump. The broader crypto community is rallying behind Trump, whose campaign has raised significant amounts of money from the sector. From April 1 to June 30, Trump’s “47” joint fundraising committee raised over $118 million, with $4 million coming from various cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ether, and XRP. Notable donors include crypto billionaires Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and BitGo CEO Mike Belshe.
Trump is set to continue engaging with the cryptocurrency community, with a keynote speech at a major Bitcoin conference in Tennessee on Saturday and a fundraising event in Nashville the same day.
Brian Hughes, a Trump campaign aide, highlighted the importance of crypto support for CBNC: “Cryptocurrency innovators and others in the tech sector are under attack from Kamala Harris and the Democrats. President Trump is ready to promote American leadership in this and other emerging technologies.”
At the time of publishing this report, XRP was trading at $0.6031.
Featured image from YouTube / Ripple, chart from TradingView,com