XRP News Today: Trump Blacklists Firm Over XRP Post, Feels Manipulated

President Donald Trump has reportedly blacklisted a lobbying firm that he believes manipulated him into posting about XRP on social media. In early March, Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that he had directed the Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets to establish a Crypto Strategic Reserve that includes XRP, SOL, and ADA.

According to reports, Trump was persuaded to make the post by an employee of the lobbying firm Ballard Partners. The unnamed employee reportedly approached Trump at Mar-a-Lago and encouraged him multiple times to publish the post, even providing him with the text of a message she thought the president should write.

After Trump published the post, he discovered that Ripple, the firm behind the payments coin XRP, was also a Ballard client. Ripple maintains that the crypto asset is an independent token but owns 46 billion XRP out of the coin’s 100 billion max supply.

Trump was reportedly "furious" and "felt like he’d been used," leading him to blacklist the head of the firm, Brian Ballard, explicitly stating that "he is not welcome in anything anymore."

Additionally, David Sacks, the White House’s Crypto Czar, was reportedly "furious" about the Crypto Strategic Reserve post on Truth Social and complained to Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

Trump later followed up the initial Truth Social post with another message praising the top two crypto assets, stating, “And, obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be the heart of the Reserve. I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum!”