Connect with us
DAPA Banner

Crypto World

The great AmEx partnership with XRP that wasn’t

Published

on

The great AmEx partnership with XRP that wasn’t

For months, XRP influencers on X and YouTube have been promising their followers that American Express (AmEx) was about to embrace XRP. The longawaited announcement finally arrived on March 30. 

Turns out, the NFL sponsorship deal with the credit card giant had nothing to do with XRP. Yesterday, AmEx became the Official Payments Partner of the NFL, i.e., for presale tickets, on-site experiences, and game perks. 

Not a single mention of Ripple or its blockchain.

The hype had been building for months and reached a crescendo in the hours before the announcement.

Advertisement

The same false promise has resurged in viral waves for years.

A years-long pattern of recycled hype

XRP influencers have forecasted AmEx’s use of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) an embarrassing number of times.

Months and even years ago, influencers claimed it was “a done deal” with AmEx, attaching diagrams, conference videos, audio clips, and assortments of annotated screenshots.

In January 2025, a leader of the XRP Army told his followers that Garlinghouse had revealed a partnership with AmEx under a non-disclosure agreement. 

Advertisement

In March 2025, another influencer posted that AmEx had confirmed manufacturing a crypto card with Ripple.

By July 2025, yet another XRP influencer cited an unattributed infographic claiming AmEx somehow uses XRPL.

On YouTube, dozens of videos promote the same false narrative. Creators repackaged old footage as breaking news.

What actually happened in 2017

The entire mythology traces back to one real event. In November 2017, AmEx and Ripple announced a pilot for cross-border business payments between the US and UK via RippleNet.

Critically, that pilot did not use the XRP coin. Ripple’s own executive told CNBC at the time, “The technology we have developed, it separated a connection from the cryptocurrency or the token.”

Advertisement

AmEx could use Ripple to exchange value from one fiat currency to another, he explained, “without the need for any intermediate blockchain currency.” Treacher added that XRP “will come into play later on in the evolutionary dynamics and the other players.”

Read more: Here’s why Ripple XRP partnerships and MoUs often go nowhere

It never did. AmEx never expanded the pilot, adopted XRP, or pursued any deal with Ripple beyond 2017. AmEx has never confirmed any new XRP deal, and the more recent viral claims have been labeled fake and misleading.

Still, the AmEx rumor gained its inception then, and XRP influencers kept recycling it for years.

Advertisement

The XRP engagement economy of nonexistent partnerships

XRP influencers have turned the gap between RippleNet partnerships and actual XRPL usage into a cottage industry. 

The pattern is consistent. Influencers cite details about a years-old blockchain pilot, conflate RippleNet with XRP token usage, add ‘breaking’ or ‘just in’ or emergency siren emojis, and collect effortless engagement on social media.

Worse, some posts promoted unrelated tokens alongside the AmEx fiction. One Binance Square user bundled the fake announcement with a promotion for an unrelated token that would allegedly benefit from the non-existent AmEx-XRPL deal.

Protos has previously documented hundreds of Ripple partnership announcements that generated minimal usage of XRP, from MoneyGram to Bhutan’s central bank.

Advertisement

XRP is down 29% year to date. AmEx, meanwhile, is selling football tickets using regular dollars.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Crypto World

Bitcoin, Stocks Pile On Gains As US, Iran Consider Ending War

Published

on

Bitcoin, Stocks Pile On Gains As US, Iran Consider Ending War

Bitcoin held gains above $68,000 as investors leaned into news that the US and Iran were ideating ways to end the war. Will markets hold their newfound bullishness?

Bitcoin (BTC) briefly jumped to $68,589, and US stock markets rallied as investors reacted to US President Donald Trump’s statements on considering options for ending the US and Israel-Iran war. Separate, unconfirmed comments attributed to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also suggested that Iran may be looking for ways to end the war. 

On Tuesday, reporting from The Wall Street Journal said that President Trump told his aides that he could consider ending the war in Iran, with the Straight of Hormuz remaining partially closed, but an official statement has not been given. 

Advertisement

Unconfirmed reports also suggest that Iran’s president is looking for a way to exit the conflict with certain assurances being made by the US and Israel. Regardless of the accuracy of the statements from either president, the DOW gained more than 1,125 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq gained 2.91% and 3.83%, respectively. 

Despite the strong performance seen across markets, Cointelegraph reported that crypto traders are skeptical of Bitcoin holding its current gains. Analysts suggested that a daily close above the 50-day moving average and $68,879 are key to establishing an early trend change and potentially clearing overhead short liquidity, which could trigger a liquidation-driven rally to $82,000.  

Related: Bitcoin hits $68K but BTC futures, macro data show traders remain bearish

A lack of confidence is the current culprit 

Beyond US macroeconomic conditions and the forecasted longer-term negative impact of the US and Israel-Iran war on energy, goods and services costs, the weakness of spot demand in the Bitcoin market continues to cap most price breakouts. 

Advertisement

As shown in the chart below, open interest in the Bitcoin futures market, along with spot demand have remained relatively flat since the Feb. 6 sell-off below $60,000. This suggests that a majority of the price action is driven by news headlines, equities and perpetual futures markets, as the absence of investors making sustained directional bets in each market (futures and spot) leaves BTC price range-bound.   

BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: Velo

Earlier reporting from Cointelegraph also highlighted short-term traders holding positions below their cost basis ($85,800) and stablecoin inflows to crypto exchanges near a two-year low, further evidence that traders remain extremely cautious and are electing not to take strong directional bets in the market.