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The great AmEx partnership with XRP that wasn’t

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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.

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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. 

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Crypto World

BitMEX Enables Off-Exchange Trading Via Zodia Custody

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BitMEX Enables Off-Exchange Trading Via Zodia Custody

BitMEX, a derivatives-focused cryptocurrency exchange, said it has secured a custody partner to enable asset segregation and trading with off-exchange assets.

The company announced Tuesday a partnership with Zodia Custody to allow traders to access derivatives while keeping collateral in segregated custody. The integration is immediately accessible via Interchange, Zodia Custody’s off-venue settlement solution.

BitMEX CEO Stephan Lutz told Cointelegraph the move reflects lessons from past market failures, including the FTX collapse and the $1.4 billion Bybit hack, which exposed risks tied to unsegregated or compromised exchange-held funds.

“Cases like the FTX collapse and the Bybit hack are examples of how custody failures or security threats can put client funds at risk,” Lutz said.

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Trading without prefunding the exchange

Under the integration, institutional and professional BitMEX clients can trade derivatives without transferring assets directly onto the exchange. Instead, collateral remains in Zodia’s segregated vault and is mirrored for trading execution.

This structure allows traders to maintain control of assets while accessing BitMEX’s derivatives, including perpetual swaps and futures. It also supports cross-collateral usage of Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Tether USDt (USDT) and USDC (USDC).

Source: BitMEX

This setup is designed to improve capital efficiency for traders by removing the need to move assets between custody and exchange accounts. It also reduces operational risk tied to pre-funding workflows, which are common in traditional crypto trading models.

Custody is a core part of traditional finance markets

Zodia Custody, which launched in 2021 and is backed by Standard Chartered, is an institutional digital asset custody provider operating globally. The platform secured a Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) authorization in Luxembourg in late 2025, enabling regulated services across the European Union.

BitMEX CEO noted that custody has long been a core element of traditional finance, becoming even more critical following collapses like FTX and security incidents like the Bybit hack.

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Related: Zonda exchange says 4.5K BTC wallet inaccessible amid withdrawal crisis

“Custody is a core part of traditional finance markets, and recent cases like FTX and Bybit are clear examples of why it’s even more important in crypto,” Lutz said.

“As the industry matures, institutions are trading digital assets like any other asset — and should have access to the same services as they do in traditional markets,” he added.

Additional reporting by Felix Ng.

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