Ripple Co-Founder Chris Larsen Donates XRP worth $25 Million to US University
Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Ripple, Chris Larsen along with his wife Lyna Lam and RippleWorks, a nonprofit foundation have made a significant contribution to San Francisco State University of $25 million in XRP cryptocurrency.
The donation made by Chris Larsen is important to note because it is in the form of Ripple XRP and the SFSC says that the donation is the biggest gift to the US University through digital asset.
Ripple co-founder is the richest person in the cryptocurrency industry, and it’s because of his huge XRP holdings. Forbes in February 2018 had reported that Larsen acquired XRP of worth 5.2 billion at the time. Currently, he holds a 17 percent stake in the Ripple. At the movement, XRP is trading at $0.36 and making Larsen’s XRP save worth $1.8 billion, estimating it to be the same size.
President of San Francisco State University College of Business (SFSU) Leslie E. Wong said regarding the donation,
“This groundbreaking gift will position the College of Business as an evolving, distinctly diverse and industry-relevant epicenter of business innovation and entrepreneurship.”
The announcement was made by the university on Friday.
The University’s College of Business will be allocated with the fund with an aim to help students to become “changemakers of local and global entrepreneurial and fintech ecosystems.”
Chris Larsen was the CEO of Ripple and even co-founded the company back in 2012, as of now he is serving as the executive chairman of Ripple’s board of directors. Larsen resigned from the CEO post, and now it’s taken over by Brad Garlinghouse as the Ripple’s CEO.
The statement revealed by the College of Business on Friday says that the donation will be used to fund new permanent faculty chairs namely, the RippleWorks Endowed Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Lam-Larsen Endowed Chair in Financial Technology. Both the chairs will help the college to focus on commercial incubation, digital currencies, entrepreneurship and financial technologies.
The university wants to honor the reward and is planning to change the name to the Lam family College of Business from the College of Business, it is waiting for approval from the California State University Board of Trustees, the statement noted.
With the help of “BOLD Thinking” funding campaign, the university managed to raise the funds and has crossed the mark of $136 million; the aim is of $150 million. The area of this funding campaign has surpassed our aim, but not its reach, John Gumas, the chair campaign informed.
In 2014, Larsen had determined of donating XRP worth of 7 billion to an unknown charitable trust which led to controversy for donating large amount in XRP which was awarded to the founders of Ripple.
Reportedly, during the opening of European markets, Ripple (XRP) was 13 percent high. Ripple (XRP) is the third largest cryptocurrency of the world by market capitalization. The donation to the US University was the extension of University Blockchain Research initiative of Ripple.
