Crypto Weekly: Ripple’s $1B Buyback, Trump’s $1B Profit

Ripple Labs announced plans to launch a fundraising effort to purchase $1 billion worth of its XRP token to create a new digital asset treasury. This substantial buyback comes as Ripple already holds 4.5 billion XRP tokens and maintains another 37 billion tokens in escrow, signaling a significant commitment to the digital asset’s long-term value proposition. The move represents one of the largest corporate treasury allocations to cryptocurrency in recent memory.

Meanwhile, a Financial Times investigation revealed that US President Donald Trump and his family have made a profit of over $1 billion through their cryptocurrency empire. When questioned about the figures, Eric Trump stated that the actual profits were “probably higher,” suggesting the family’s crypto investments have yielded extraordinary returns. This revelation comes amid President Trump’s growing involvement in cryptocurrency policy discussions and his consideration of a presidential pardon for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.

The institutional embrace of digital assets continued this week with several landmark developments. a16z Crypto, the blockchain investment arm of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, announced a $50 million investment in Jito, a liquid staking protocol underpinning the Solana network. The investment values Jito at $800 million, with a16z receiving JTO tokens at a discounted rate, highlighting the continued institutional interest in blockchain infrastructure projects.

In traditional finance, Citigroup plans to launch a crypto custody service in 2026, marking the latest major bank to enter the digital asset services market. According to sources, the bank had been working on its crypto custody service for nearly three years, demonstrating the careful, methodical approach traditional financial institutions are taking toward cryptocurrency adoption. This move follows similar initiatives by other major banking institutions seeking to capture market share in the growing digital asset custody space.

Market stability concerns emerged briefly when Ethena Labs founder Guy Young addressed a depegging event on Binance that saw the value of the USDe token drop to $0.65. Young characterized the incident as an isolated event due to an internal issue on Binance, not because of the underlying collateral, seeking to reassure investors about the token’s fundamental stability mechanisms.

On the infrastructure front, Web3 Brevis announced that its Pico Prism zkVM has achieved record proving coverage of 99.6% (below 12 seconds) and real-time proving coverage of 96.8% (below 10) for Ethereum blocks with a 45M gas limit. This technical breakthrough in zero-knowledge proof technology represents significant progress in scaling blockchain infrastructure while maintaining security and verification standards.

Regulatory developments took center stage this week with multiple jurisdictions taking significant actions. The United States Department of Justice seized $15 billion worth of Bitcoin from an individual leading a massive “pig butchering” operation based in Cambodia. This seizure represents the largest forfeiture action in the DOJ’s history and demonstrates the increasing focus on cryptocurrency-related financial crimes.

In Japan, the Financial Services Agency and the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission are preparing a regulatory overhaul to ban insider trading in cryptocurrencies. The government plans to authorize the SESC to investigate suspicious trades and recommend penalties and charges, bringing cryptocurrency markets closer to the regulatory standards applied to traditional financial markets.

The potential presidential pardon for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao represents another significant regulatory development. Zhao has served time and paid $4.3 billion in fines after a 2023 money-laundering conviction, and a pardon could restore his standing in the cryptocurrency industry, potentially impacting Binance’s future operations and the broader regulatory landscape for cryptocurrency exchanges.