Incoming US President Donald Trump is widely expected to be a positive catalyst for the crypto market, but his promises are already hurting business for locally based crypto firms.
Financial firm Ripple Labs, which offers payment rails and the RLUSD stablecoin using the XRP Ledger, is reporting a bump in local deals and hiring efforts ahead of Trump’s inauguration in January 20 — pinning growth on the incoming administration’s campaign promises.
“2025 is here and the Trump bull market is real,” CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in an X post on Sunday. “For Ripple, this is more personal after Gensler’s SEC effectively chilled our business opportunities here at home for years. The optimism is obvious and deserved.”
“We signed more deals in the US in the last six weeks of 2024 (since the election) than in the previous six MONTHS. Say what you want, but the “Trump effect” is making crypto great again – through his campaign, and the Administration’s day one priorities,” he added.
2025 is here and the Trump bull market is real. For Ripple, it’s even more personal after Gensler’s SEC effectively chilled our business opportunities here at home for years. The optimism is obvious and deserved.
now:
✅75% of Ripple’s open roles are based in the US, while…— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) January 5, 2025
Garlinghouse added that the company now hires almost exclusively in the United States, which is a shift from the company’s offshore expansion during the previous Joe Biden administration.
Ripple now has 75% of its open roles in the US, Garlinghouse said. As such, the company is also donating to Trump’s upcoming inauguration and pledging $5 million worth of XRP tokens to the effort.
Since November, speculative optimism among traders has been that a crypto-friendly Trump administration could benefit tokens linked to US-based companies, such as Ripple Labs (which is related to XRP) and Uniswap (UNI), because companies are more involved in strengthening. value for token holders.
XRP prices have risen more than 300% since Trump won, outpacing the growth of all other major cryptocurrencies, mainly in the US narrative.
Traders from other countries are also piling in. Last week, XRP rose more than 11% even as the majors remained rangebound, led by $1.3 billion worth of trading volumes on Korea-focused exchange Upbit.
CoinDesk’s analysis previously flagged unusually high trading volume for XRP coming from South Korean exchanges, which used to be a harbinger for price volatility with a bullish bias.
XRP was trading just above $2.40 during the afternoon hours in Asia on Monday, little changed over the past 24 hours along with the broader market.
