Gm frens, welcome to July’s first news round-up!
Ripple donates over $70M to global causes; X Money user sends $25 to Elon Musk; Pavel Durov gifts $12,000 NFT to a Telegram designer. Users bet over $4 million on Taylor Swift’s wedding, while the world’s highest-IQ holder backs an XRP supercycle, and an ANSEM meme coin deployer makes $5.5k. Lastly, Zypto launches its redesigned platform with expanded features.
Let’s get to it.
Ripple donates over $70M to global causes
Ripple has released its 2025 Annual Impact Report, detailing support for education, financial inclusion, sustainability, and humanitarian programs. Since 2018, the company has donated more than $250 million, including over $70 million contributed in 2025.
The report also highlighted how Ripple’s blockchain tools, including the XRP Ledger and the RLUSD stablecoin, supported different projects. They include programs in emerging markets, microfinance, and humanitarian aid through partnerships with nonprofit organizations.
Ripple committed $25 million in RLUSD to support underserved U.S. small business owners and career programs for military veterans. The company also helped partners deploy $53.6 million and supported nearly 12,000 water and sanitation loans. Several non-profit partners described Ripple’s funding as long-term support rather than one-time donations.
In addition, Ripple supported blockchain research and education through its university Blockchain Research Initiative. Now in its seventh year, the program spans 62 universities, has awarded $74 million since 2018, and supported 198 XRPL projects in 2025.
Beyond these, Ripple said employee participation reached its highest level since the program began. About 80% of employees participated in volunteer and donation efforts, supporting 544 non-profit organizations and raising $555,000 for charitable causes.
Alongside these social and environmental efforts, Ripple highlighted broader blockchain adoption through its programs. The firm said active users increased 37% and transactions rose 113% year-over-year. Tokenized real-world assets on the XRP Ledger expanded from $24.7 million to $568 million during 2025, while total network transactions surpassed 3.8 billion.
X Money user sends $25 to Elon Musk
A U.S. user sent $25 directly to Elon Musk to test X Money’s peer-to-peer feature. Musk confirmed the payment publicly on X as the platform officially launched its full payments service for US Premium subscribers.
X Money’s digital wallet enables real-time peer-to-peer transfers, bank account deposits, and US dollar balance storage. Subscribers also receive a physical metal Visa debit card for everyday spending at any Visa-accepting merchant.
The launch marks the end of a months-long beta period for X’s integrated financial system. The service initially covers Premium and Premium+ subscribers, with a wider expansion expected to follow. Earlier in the year, Musk already signaled X Money’s arrival, placing it at the center of his broader app ambitions.
Users can send money to any X account, link external bank accounts, and hold dollar balances inside the app. The Visa debit card ships to subscribers and displays their X handle as the card identifier.
An X user put the feature to an immediate test by sending $25 to the world’s richest person. Musk confirmed the receipt in a brief public reply.
The exchange gave X Money’s P2P transfers a public proof of concept within hours of the official launch. Musk has separately revealed plans for crypto integration with X Money, and the fiat-first release does not rule out future digital assets. X’s XChat also topped the App Store at launch, demonstrating the platform’s consistent ability to drive rapid adoption of new product releases.
Pavel Durov gifts $12,000 NFT to a Telegram designer
Telegram founder Pavel Durov purchased Plush Pepe #834 for 7,500 Gram (GRAM) on The Open Network (TON), then transferred the NFT to Adler Toberg, a designer linked to Telegram’s interface and gift system.
The acquisition marks Durov’s third confirmed purchase of a TON collectible in just over six months. He added his first Plush Pepe in December 2025, then picked up a Telegram Gift NFT in January 2026. Together, the moves reflect deliberate and ongoing personal engagement with the digital asset layer Telegram continues to build.
Plush Pepes are Telegram’s official collectibles series, issued natively on The Open Network. At GRAM’s current price of $1.55, the 7,500 GRAM spent on Plush Pepe #834 comes to roughly $11,625. The specific piece is the Donatello model, a 1% rarity variant, with a Bell Pepper symbol (0.5%) and a Navy Blue backdrop (2%). Of the 2,861 Donatello editions, 2,825 have found owners.
The TON blockchain X account responded to Durov’s purchase with a dry piece of humor. It expressed hope that he would pass the NFT along to a Telegram intern as a workplace bonus. The joke turned out to be close to the truth.
Durov transferred Plush Pepe #834 directly to Adler Toberg, a designer known for his work on Telegram’s interface and gift system. Toberg has previously made public statements about the direction of Telegram’s collectibles program, including the cadence of new gift releases.
The transfer points to something real. Within the Telegram ecosystem, collectibles now carry social weight as markers of community standing. Durov’s decision to give a high-value NFT to a member of his team reinforces that dynamic. His role as Telegram’s CEO makes each on-chain move a visible signal across the network.
Users bet over $4 million on Taylor Swift’s wedding
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s unannounced wedding has already generated more than $4 million in trading volume on prediction platform Kalshi, with bettors wagering on the venue, date and bridesmaids.
According to Kalshi, entertainment trading grew from $43 million in 2024 to over $300 million in 2025. Music markets alone surpassed $400 million in Q1 2026, putting total 2026 entertainment volume on pace for $1 billion.
The location market has drawn $2.26 million in volume, making it Kalshi’s largest Swift-Kelce trading category. New York holds 84% odds, Rhode Island trails at 16%, while Pennsylvania has 5%.
Separate markets track the wedding party, with celebrities populating them. Jason Kelce leads the odds of being a groomsman at 89%, followed by Patrick Mahomes at 72%. On the bridesmaid’s side, Gigi Hadid holds 55% odds for maid of honor, while Kylie Kelce has 61%.
The Swift-Kelce surge arrives as prediction markets post a record monthly transaction volume. Monthly active users reached 865,411 in March 2026, up 118% from the prior year. Monthly notional volume hit $23.89 billion, a 1,107% year-over-year increase.
The sector grew from roughly $1.2 billion in monthly volume in April 2025. By March 2026, that figure had exceeded $25 billion. Kalshi is targeting a $40 billion valuation in an ongoing funding round, up from $22 billion a month earlier. The platform has also expanded through a World Cup prediction partnership, broadening its market categories.
World’s highest IQ holder backs an XRP supercycle
The world’s highest IQ record holder just declared that the XRP supercycle is only beginning, while three bullish signals hit the chart at the same time. The token trades near $1.05 as the narrative quickly gains momentum.
The XRP narrative just got a major sentiment boost from YoungHoonKim, holder of the verified world record for the highest IQ, who publicly described the current XRP phase as the very early innings.
Furthermore, the message landed at a moment when both technical and on-chain indicators are aligning for the Ripple token. Such declarations always generate excitement among holders. However, the framing matters because it aligns with structured cycle perspectives shared by serious technical analysts.
As a result, the supercycle conversation has expanded into long-term, data-driven market modeling for XRP. Technical analyst ChartNerdTA recently highlighted relevant historical cycle data. XRP’s moves from one periodic cycle high to the next have averaged three to five years over the past decade-plus. That said, if a cycle bottom forms during 2026, the next major XRP top could realistically land between 2028 and 2030.
XRP has just triggered three bullish signals at once, reinforcing the broader narrative pushed by the highest-IQ holder this week.
The first signal comes from the Tom DeMark Sequential indicator on the daily chart. The setup printed a fresh “9” buy signal, as flagged by analyst Ali Charts. Furthermore, the reading often signals exhaustion in downtrends and tends to precede short-term relief rallies lasting 1 to 4 candles.
The second signal is a Morning Star Doji candlestick pattern, an indicator used to identify localized price bottoms.
The third signal comes from on-chain activity. Daily active addresses jumped from around 23,000 on June 14 to nearly 39,500 in recent days. That surge points to genuine network engagement rather than speculative positioning alone, driving short-term price recovery.
Together, the three signals form a rare alignment. Technical reversal patterns are now meeting concrete on-chain growth at a defended support zone. However, confirmation will require sustained buying volume.
ANSEM meme coin deployer makes $5.5K
A Solana-based meme coin named after prominent crypto influencer Ansem has rocketed to a fully diluted valuation of over $108 million, with on-chain data showing his wallet holds more than $71 million worth of the token. However, the person who deployed the coin reportedly walked away with just $5,500.
On-chain analytics firm Lookonchain shared details of the situation, saying that the deployer, identified by the wallet tag “yHCxHB,” spent $6,300 to launch The Black Bull ($ANSEM) and then acquired 792.45 million tokens in the process. Of those, 650 million were transferred directly to Ansem’s wallet for free, with the deployer then selling the remaining 142.5 million tokens for $11,800, resulting in a $5,500 profit on a meme coin that has since surpassed a $43 million market cap.
Spot-on on-chain analyst Hupzy noted that ANSEM’s supply structure was highly concentrated and influencer-controlled. Rugcheck.xyz shared the same warning, flagging a risk of market manipulation due to a high concentration of tokens in unidentified wallets.
A Pump.fun ecosystem-tracking account has been documenting the meme token’s rise in real time. It noted, at the time of writing, that $ANSEM was the top-traded on Pump.fun by volume in the past 24 hours, well ahead of tokens like Jotchua and Fartcoin.
Lookonchain highlighted one wallet, CxCTVj, that saw a 261x return after buying 14.2 million ANSEM tokens near the start, turning $2,330 into $614,500. Another trader reportedly bought $3,370 worth of the asset when its market cap was about $4 million and later sold it for $37,580, securing an 11x gain.
Zypto launches its redesigned platform with expanded features
Zypto has launched a major upgrade to its platform with the release of Zypto.com v2. It introduces a redesigned interface, expanded crypto market data coverage, and a broad suite of tools to simplify how users explore and interact with the crypto ecosystem.
The updated platform significantly expands the range of available assets to research, allowing users to explore more than 25,000 cryptocurrencies through detailed asset pages featuring live pricing, interactive charts, heatmaps, liquidity insights, and market data.
Alongside enhanced market visibility, Zypto v2 introduces improved navigation and discovery features. They are designed to make it easier for users to compare projects, analyse blockchain ecosystems, and identify emerging trends across the digital asset space.
A central addition to the platform is Crypto Share Studio, a content creation tool that enables users to transform live market data into shareable visuals. The feature allows users to generate custom price cards, charts, and heatmaps with built-in editing tools, supporting community engagement directly from the platform.
Zypto has also expanded its focus on real-world utility by introducing ‘Spend Crypto by Country.’ It is a feature that highlights region-specific availability of crypto services, including crypto cards, bill payments, and mobile top-ups, and now supports 41 languages.
To support user education, Zypto.com also now includes a growing library of blockchain guides, explainers, and learning resources. The educational content is designed to make crypto more accessible to both new and experienced users. Find out more here.
Closing remark
Besides the social, financial, and environmental benefits, Ripple’s donations expand blockchain-driven initiatives in research, and real-world asset growth. X Money’s newly launched peer-to-peer payments feature marks its push into integrated financial services.
Pavel Durov’s $12,000 NFT gift highlights the growing social and symbolic value of digital collectibles within the platform’s ecosystem. Prediction markets amassing over $4 million in bets on a potential Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce wedding underscores rapid growth in entertainment-based wagering.
The combination of high-profile sentiment, bullish technical and on-chain signals is reshaping how traders frame the next XRP cycle. Analysts warn of concentrated ownership and manipulation risks, with the $ANSEM story a cautionary tale. The launch of Zypto.com v2 underscores the company’s broader strategy to unify market data, education, content creation, and real-world utility within a single platform.
FAQs
What did Ripple donate for?
Ripple donated to support education, financial, sustainability, and humanitarian programs.
How much was sent to Elon Musk?
A U.S. user sent $25 directly to Elon Musk to test X Money's peer-to-peer feature.
Who did Pavel Durov gift?
Pavel Durov transferred the Plush Pepe #834 NFT to Telegram designer Adler Toberg.
How much has betting on Taylor Swift's wedding generated?
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's unannounced wedding has already generated more than $4 million in trading volume on Kalshi.
How much did the ANSEM memecoin deployer make?
The person who deployed the $ANSEM meme coin reportedly walked away with $5,500.
