According to a Thursday report by Politico, the viral Truth Social post that mentioned XRP and several other altcoins in early March was actually written by an employee of Brian Ballard's lobbying firm.
The highly influential lobbyist has now been purged from the White House following the incident, the report says.
The copy of the infamous post, which announced "Crypto Strategic Reserve," was repeatedly pitched to promote the industry.
The twist? Ripple Labs, the enterprise blockchain company linked to the controversial XRP token, is actually a client of Ballard Partners. This detail only came to light after the post mentioning XRP went live.
As reported by U.Today, the massive endorsement caused a significant spike in the price of the XRP token.
However, it was later clarified that the U.S. government would establish a Bitcoin-only strategic reserve while other cryptocurrencies would be part of a murky "stockpile."
Ripple moved to hire Ballard Partners back in November, according to lobbying disclosure records. Plenty of other companies, including banking giant JPMorgan and crypto exchange Kraken, also retained the firm since Ballard had the reputation of being the go-to lobbyist.
However, the XRP-related lobbying trap backfired in a spectacular fashion, with the White House immediately moving to cut ties with Ballard. Officials were banned from having any meetings with the top whisperer, who previously boasted seemingly unfettered access to the administration. One top White House aide reportedly yelled at Ballard.
Even though the White House was growing increasingly dissatisfied with Ballard, the Truth Social post mentioning XRP was repeatedly the "tipping point," Politico says.
Vladislav Sopov