XRP cryptocurrency is trading 2.4% higher at $0.298 at press time early Thursday, outperforming Bitcoin (BTC), which has tanked 2% to $34,779.71.
The surge comes following the Wall Street Journal’s report that President Joe Biden is expected to nominate former Treasury Department official Michael Barr to head the office of the comptroller of the currency.
Barr had joined the XRP parent company Ripple Labs Inc. as an advisor in 2015.
Ripple said last week that Barr was no longer associated with the project, as noted by CoinDesk.
The decentralized ledger technology-based payments company is troubled by a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit over whether XRP qualifies as a security.
Ripple earlier this month announced that former Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) Vice President of Delivery Experience Devraj Varadhan was joining the company as the senior vice president of engineering.
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Photo courtesy of Ripple
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