Ripple went all-in on politics this year — and it paid off spectacularly. The oldest, most experienced, and wealthiest altcoin-focused company, Ripple’s multi-year initial coin offering (ICO) started in February 2013 and ultimately raised $1.3 billion — a breathtaking sum during crypto’s early years.

Three of the project’s co-founders, Chris Larsen, Brad Garlinghouse, and Jed McCaleb, are now billionaires and the market cap of its flagship XRP token is up $88 billion year-to-date.

Working in the industry for over a decade, its leaders have learned what types of activities do and do not make an impact. As one of the world’s first ICOs, they created the playbook for millions of subsequent token offerings and continue to find ways to engage their community of holders.

In 2024, the correct choice was prioritizing politics.

Millions in politics donations for billions in crypto gains

In the five weeks since the US election, XRP has quadrupled from $0.50 to over $2. On a national TV broadcast, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse celebrated his political efforts that culminated in victories on November 5.

Reporters at 60 Minutes interviewed Garlinghouse where he highlighted the digital asset industry’s influence on US policy-makers. During the 2024 election, 60 Minutes revealed, crypto companies donated one-third of all direct corporate contributions to super PACs.

Those crypto donations worked. An overwhelming 85% of the 33 lawmakers who received donations from crypto super PACs won their election to Congress.

Ripple executives were marquee donors. Garlinghouse donated $44 million to political candidates with friendly stances toward digital assets, including $25 million to Fairshake, a crypto super PAC. Fairshake said it would use the money to onboard more attorneys to offer pro bono services and promote financial and crypto literacy.

Ripple co-founder Larsen donated $5 million to Greenpeace’s virtue-signaling push for Bitcoin to switch its algorithm from proof-of-work to a new, more eco-friendly algorithm. Even though Larsen knew the network would never initiate such a change, his philanthropic support for the environment signaled support to democratic policymakers.

Read more: Ripple exec Chris Larsen donates $250K to up police surveillance in San Francisco

Ripple won’t be leaving politics

Of course, Ripple’s involvement in politics started as early as 2019 when it joined the Blockchain Association, a lobbyist for crypto-friendly regulation. That membership predates the SEC’s unregistered securities lawsuit but could indicate that Ripple’s co-founders were already anticipating attention from regulators.

Garlinghouse and Larsen also routinely associate with Washington DC insiders and regulators. For example, they recently appeared at a fintech conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

In summary, Ripple has learned that being politically active is a savvy technique for long-term success in crypto. And token holders have reaped the rewards.

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Amid a cryptocurrency bull run, Ripple (XRP) has surged in price to $2.67 at press time and briefly enjoyed a market cap greater than 88% of the stocks in the S&P 500 today.

In the past seven days, XRP’s market cap has more than doubled in size from $75.3 billion on November 26 to $158.5 billion today, overtaking Solana and Tether by market cap. According to Stock Analysis, this ranked XRP 61st out of 503 stocks in the S&P 500 — outperforming a whopping 88% of them.

XRP’s market cap was just above the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock ($BLK at $158 billion) and ride-share giant Uber ($UBER at $154 billion).

Read more: CHART: Dogecoin market cap now greater than 60% of S&P 500

Though its market cap has slightly fallen to $153 billion at press time, XRP is still outperforming Peter Thiel’s Palantir ($PLTR at $151 billion), biotech corporation Pfizer ($PFE at $146 billion), banking behemoth Citigroup ($C at $136B), and defense contractor Lockheed Martin ($LMT at $123 billion).

XRP officially reached a new market cap all-time-high (ATH) at $158.5 billion. The last time it came anywhere close was on the tail of bitcoin’s bull run in late 2017; its previous peak was $131.7 billion on January 7, 2018.

This latest XRP pump has been attributed to several potential factors, including news that hints at a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Speculation that Elon Musk may soon invest in XRP is also a likely contributing factor, along with new partnerships and a potential XRP ETF.

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XRP Army, the social media fan club for all things Ripple, is alive and well in South Korea. Seoul-based crypto exchange Upbit reported that XRP traders on its platform are more active than traders of any other crypto asset this week — trading even more than bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH).

With over $6 billion in XRP traded, Ripple’s blockchain asset was responsible for over one-third of the crypto exchange’s $18 billion total on Monday.

That South Korea — a relatively small country — is leading a rally in a major cryptocurrency is unremarkable for veterans who have been around since 2017.

Back then, South Korea attracted international crypto arbitrageurs to its ‘kimchi premium,’ the phenomenon that for many months, saw BTC traded at a premium in the country versus exchanges in other regions.

On Monday, and for a few hours over the weekend, XRP denominated in South Korean won (KRW) traded at a slight, single-digit percentage premium versus the global average. Although its premium fluctuated intermittently and is back to parity as of publication time, high demand in South Korea indicated a possible resurgence of a kimchi premium that had not been seen for years.

For one glorious day, Upbit overtook Coinbase price leadership

On December 2, XRP’s price leadership passed from Coinbase to Upbit, and its price in KRW led Coinbase’s price for approximately a day.

XRP has been particularly volatile recently. After more than 400% gains within the last four weeks, some mispricings around the world are certainly to be expected.

On most other major exchanges like Coinbase or Binance, BTC typically has the highest trading volume. However, today, BTC is ranked tenth by trading volume on Seoul-based Upbit.

South Korean Ajummas win big on XRP

XRP’s $150 billion market capitalization ranks among the largest public companies with a primary stock listing in South Korea. Although smaller than Samsung, XRP is larger than Hyundai or Kia. (Of course, the XRP Ledger does not have a headquarters, and most of Ripple’s founders are from California, not Seoul.)

After XRP’s quadrupling over the past four weeks, South Korean media is praising a group known as the Ajummas. Ajumma is a kind of South Korean equivalent of the “Jones” surname that references a stereotypical couple living out a successful American Dream.

Unlike the quintessentially hard-working Mr. and Mrs. Jones, however, South Korean Ajummas are more akin to Japan’s Mrs. Watanabe, a group of stay-at-home housewives-turned-savvy investors.

In Japan, the Mrs. Watanabe class discovered low-cost funding for an immensely profitable yen-USD carry trade. In South Korea, Ajummas have apparently discovered crypto.

Supercharged with gains like XRP’s 400% in one month, Ajummas are outperforming their Japanese counterparts in spades.

XRP has quadrupled within a month and climbed crypto leaderboards with olympic speed, now ranking third worldwide. It has surpassed tether (USDT), Binance Coin (BNB), and Solana (SOL) in size, and is third only to BTC and ETH.

XRP Army tallies its winnings

News flow for XRP has been positive in recent weeks. XRP leaders recently launched a stablecoin and real-world asset (RWA) platform and Ripple secured a partial victory in its widely misinterpreted SEC lawsuit. Its founders also embraced lobbying and donated millions to political campaigns.

Large asset managers like WisdomTree, Bitwise, and Canary Capital have filed S-1 applications to list spot XRP ETFs on US exchanges. Those applications would have gone nowhere under SEC Chairman Gary Gensler but might have renewed hope under a new 2025 chair in Donald Trump’s incoming administration.

All these successes have paid off. South Koreans who bought XRP at any time in the past except the first week of 2018 are currently in profit.

Read more: SEC wants 2nd Circuit to overrule Ripple XRP decision

Skiddish Ajummas and newfound riches

Although South Korea might be celebrating the XRP bull market high, some cautious Ajummas are already locking in their profits.

Jaded by years of underperformance, South Koreans remain skeptical that XRP has long-term staying power. Some Koreans like Ryan Kim even allege that Ripple was partly responsible for a historical, doomed scheme called Ripple Market Korea. (The involvement of Ripple in this organization is indeterminate.)

Other Koreans remember what happened with Terra LUNA. South Korea turned founder Do Kwon into a national lesson when his crypto project imploded in 2022. Kwon lost investors like the Ajummas untold fortunes as his empire of tens of billions collapsed to near-$0. 

The LUNA collapse was a national story and devastated so many Ajummas that media reports even tied some tragic deaths to the incident.

In South Korea, the name Do Kwon will live in infamy. A South Korean court was first to issue a warrant for his arrest and Kwon physically fled the country, claiming that he moved to Singapore due to concerns about his family’s safety.

After months as an international fugitive, authorities finally arrested him in Montenegro.

Although LUNA has very little to do with XRP, the memory of quick riches and even quicker losses are front-of-mind for the historically conservative Ajummas community.

If XRP cannot hold onto its gains, it could provide even more disappointment to South Koreans still stinging from LUNA’s meltdown two years ago.

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Even after today’s 4% retracement off October’s near-record highs for crypto prices, most major assets have rallied year-to-date. Bitcoin has added 66% to its market capitalization while smaller assets like Dogecoin and BNB have nearly doubled. In fact, every top 10 crypto asset has posted positive or neutral performance in 2024 except one: XRP.

With total crypto market capitalization $680 billion higher than January 1, holders of XRP are disappointed, to say the least. Even troubled stablecoins like tether — with its 19 run-ins with the US government, including a Manhattan US Attorney investigation this month — have performed better than the Ripple-promoted coin.

The pain is even more acute after Ripple partially prevailed in the highest-profile lawsuit in crypto history and earned a ruling from Judge Analisa Torres that many secondary transactions of XRP purchases by retail investors were not securities transactions.

Read more: How New York judge Analisa Torres changed Gary Gensler’s career

Of course, the world’s most powerful and well-staffed securities regulator is asking the prestigious 2nd Circuit to overrule that determination. For a while, though, it seemed like XRP had cleared a major legal hurdle. 

The XRP community also celebrated major scalability upgrades to the XRP Ledger and the launch of its new stablecoin, RLUSD. Prominent banks announced intentions to explore XRPL for cross-border payments. Ripple started tokenizing real-world assets via a partnership with the first Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)-regulated digital asset exchange.

None of it earned XRP more of a bid over its competitors among the top 10. Year-to-date, XRP is down 17% and has shed $5 billion in market capitalization.

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There is a legend that in 1973, US president Richard Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger made a secret deal with Saudi Arabia to price oil exclusively in dollars, thus pegging the currency to oil and birthing the petrodollar.

According to the myth, the US provides military protection for Saudi Arabia’s oil fields in exchange for the kingdom’s role in enforcing US dollar hegemony over the world’s most valuable commodity market. Supposedly, the country’s sovereigns signed a 50-year petrodollar pact on June 6, 1974, which expired on or around June 9, 2024.

If that were true, this week would be one of the most historic weeks in the history of the US dollar. It should be primed for an immediate crash, according to the theory, to the immediate benefit of emerging currencies.

Some articles go so far as to claim, “Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has informed the Saudi government that the country will no longer accept US dollars for oil transactions.” Yes, there are people who actually believe that, with many posting that Saudi Arabia was somehow dedollarizing as we speak.

Moreover, believers in this ostensible expiry even claim that it would benefit Ripple’s technology or Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Indeed, members of the XRP Army posted vague claims that the event would catalyze an agreement by the Saudi central bank to use Ripple for oil payments or a transnational BRICS stablecoin.

Read more: Crypto Twitter misinterpreted everything in SEC v. Ripple

Crypto believed in Saudi Arabia’s oil-for-dollars pact

Of course, the reality is that almost all oil trade has been and will be priced in US dollars (or dollar-settled US treasury equivalents) for many years to come. This is not because the kingdom signed an ancient document but simply because the US dollar is the world’s most liquid currency.

There is a reason that a dominant 58% of disclosed foreign reserves in 2022 were US dollars — dwarfing the euro’s 21%, Japanese yen’s 6%, or China’s 3%. According to the world’s largest bank wire system, SWIFT, 47.3% of global payments currency used US dollars as of April 2024 — dwarfing the euro’s 22.5%, UK pound’s 6.8%, and China’s 4.5%.

Lest there be any doubt, 84% of global trade finance market transactions — measured by SWIFT as ‘Advice of Payment’ (MT 400) or ‘Issue of a Documentary Credit’ (MT 700) deliveries in April 2024 — denominated in USD.

Likewise, Saudi Arabia has been selling some oil for non-dollar assets for many years. It has sold a small amount of its oil for Chinese yuan, Russian rubles, gold, and a variety of other assets. 

Likewise, US military protection is available, provided it benefits US foreign policy interests. The US military serves at the pleasure of the US commander-in-chief. As evidenced by the US military’s disastrous occupation and withdrawal from Afghani oil fields — an “unmitigated disaster of epic proportions” according to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee — US diplomacy over foreign oil fields shifts quickly.

Indeed, the public has never seen a signed 50-year petrodollar pact. The countries probably never signed one.

Saudi Arabia acted in its best interest

Instead of a signed agreement, Saudi Arabia sold its oil mostly for dollars over the years simply because most of the world wants dollars. Benefiting from a persistent bid for US dollars for decades, it was maximally profitable for the kingdom to consistently sell oil to dollar-denominating bidders.

Similarly, the US military has protected Saudi oil fields over the years, not because it reluctantly adhered to terms of an ancient pact, but because the US has an interest in protecting its oil interests and encouraging purchases of US treasuries. US treasuries fund the US government and military.

Saudi Arabia produces approximately 9 million barrels of oil per day. The country’s GDP-to-debt is less than 30% — far healthier than the 100% ratio it held 34 years ago when it took loans to survive a late-1980s crash in oil prices. It has flexibility to sell its oil to bidders in various currencies and will continue to evaluate the profitability and diplomatic implications of accepting non-USD payment.

For the past decade, the kingdom has run a small fiscal deficit every year and expects to continue deficit spending for another five years. It spends lavishly on real estate, including planned megalopolises like Neom, a linear city that initially boasted a price tag exceeding $1 trillion.

The kingdom’s deficit this year will be approximately 2.8% of its GDP. (For context, the US ran a 6.3% deficit to its much larger GDP last year.) In short, it has plenty of fiscal flexibility to make decisions about its oil counterparties.

The Mandela-effected ‘pact’

Of course, even though June 9, 2024 has passed, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will obviously continue to sell most of its oil for dollars. Likewise, the US military will probably continue to protect Saudi oil fields. No, a 50-year petrodollar pact didn’t renew to cause this mutually beneficial cooperation. Instead, the countries will continue to cooperate as long as both sovereigns believe it makes sense to cooperate.

People have speculated about oil-producing countries breaking ties with the dollar since the 1970s. People want to believe the end of dollar hegemony is nigh. It’s not.

Similarly, there is no reason for Saudi Arabia to suddenly adopt Ripple’s technology or any CBDC because of the expiration of a non-existent 50-year pact.

Several members of the crypto community believe it exists because of the Mandela Effect, a well-known cognitive phenomenon wherein large segments of the public believe that a major event occurred that never did. (Nelson Mandela did not die in prison, even though millions of people misremember him doing so.) That Saudi Arabia and the US have had a 50-year petrodollar pact also plays into confirmation bias, another cognitive fallacy that confirms pre-existing anti-statist and anti-dollar biases.

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Ripple chief exec Brad Garlinghouse recently expressed his view via the World Class podcast that the “US Government is going after Tether” before emphasizing how important it is to the ecosystem.

This comment received a response from Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino on X (formerly Twitter), who attributed the comments from Garlinghouse to “An uniformed [sic] CEO, leading a company being investigated by the SEC, launching a competitive stablecoin (cui prodest).” 

Ripple announced last month that it intended to launch a US dollar-pegged stablecoin.

In his lengthy tweet, Ardoino also emphasized that Tether has “proved over time to have… top-tier custodians and profound compliance.”

Read more: The rise and fall of Crypto Capital Corp, crypto’s premiere shadow bank

For context re these ‘top-tier custodians,’ Tether once gave nearly a billion dollars of commingled client and corporate funds to an unlicensed money transmitter accused of money laundering for the cartels without even signing a contract.

Additionally, when considering Tether’s profound compliance, it’s important to note that it has previously settled with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over allegations that it failed to maintain advertised reserves, issued tethers against funds it hadn’t received, and used bank accounts of Tether associates to send and receive funds related to Tether.

Ardoino additionally emphasized that Tether had “onboarded the FBI and USSS for reissuances” and has worked “with 124 law enforcement agencies” over “198 requests from law enforcement to block wallets.” 

He also drew further comparisons between his firm and other stablecoins, pointing out that Tether “cooperates directly with law enforcement agencies, while other stablecoins, although they claim to be ‘more compliant’ they require a judge order, allowing hackers, scammers, and criminals a long time to move funds around.”

Ripple isn’t the only stablecoin issuer who has implied that Tether is among the targets of law enforcement. Indeed, Dante Disparte of Circle accused Tether of “counterfeiting the US dollar.” 

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Ripple executive Chris Larsen has made a $250,000 donation to a series of proposals put forward by San Francisco Mayor London Breed that could see police handed more power when it comes to the use of surveillance technology, drones, and in suspect pursuits.

According to the San Francisco Standard (SFS), Larsen is currently the top donor, handing over $350,000 to ballot measure campaigns sponsored by Breed in the run-up to next year’s election. 

These ballot measures are potential policies that are proposed by competing candidates and will be put to a public vote. Larsen gave $250,000 to a campaign committee advocating for a more relaxed approach to approving police requests for surveillance tech. This would reportedly allow the police to use drones and facial recognition technology freely for a year before it can be scrutinized by supervisors.

Read more: Here’s what the biggest stablecoins spent on lobbying in the US

Larsen also donated $100,000 to a campaign committee recommending that residents claiming welfare checks should undergo drug screening if they’re suspected of being drug addicts. In an interview with the SFS, he said, “When it comes to people dying on the street, with fentanyl and some of these new drugs which are even worse, we have to get a handle on that.

“We have to be compassionate, but we have a record number of people who have died this year again. We just cannot keep doing the same thing,”

This policy has reportedly been described by officials as punitive and detrimental to people coping with drug addiction. The policy was also rejected by supervisors but despite this, it’s reportedly popular among its target voters.

During the same SFS interview, Larsen reportedly revealed that he made the donations at the request of London Breed. Larsen also described a separate police campaign looking to increase staff, but through additional taxes, as “a bunch of bullshit.”

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Scott Purcell has resigned as chief exec (CEO) of Fortress Trust after its proposed acquisition by Ripple fell apart, Fortune has reported. Rich Hauschild, who was previously chief operating officer at iTrustCapital, will succeed him. 

Fortress Trust recently suffered a third-party vendor hack, leading to a statement in which it claimed that “there is no loss of funds.”

Ripple, at the time of the acquisition, disclosed that there was actually a loss of funds, noting that it was “in a position to act quickly to step in and make customers whole.”

However, the acquisition fell apart weeks later, with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse claiming that “the Fortress team is incredibly talented,” but despite this talent, the acquisition just didn’t make sense anymore.

Purcell has a complicated history in the crypto industry, having previously served as CEO of Prime Trust and former Prime Trust subsidiary Banq.

Prime Trust claimed in its bankruptcy that while Purcell was CEO, the company developed a multi-million-dollar shortfall of customer assets.

Read more: Ripple can’t save Fortress after all

Banq was eventually spun out and has alleged in lawsuits and bankruptcy that Purcell “unlawfully transferred the vast majority of the debtor’s employees, trade secrets, intellectual property, technology, business opportunities, and equipment, including computer systems containing the debtor’s electronic records relating to, among other things, its business assets, operations, proprietary information, and research and development efforts.” These assets were claimed to be used to start Fortress Trust.

Purcell’s LinkedIn says that he is now the founder of a ‘stealth startup’ and hopefully this time it will not be a payment processor that loses customer assets.

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What had appeared, just a few weeks ago, to be a surefire acquisition of Fortress Trust by Ripple has fallen through, according to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. No reason was given for abandoning the acquisition but Garlinghouse did say that “Ripple will remain an investor,” and that “the Fortress team is incredibly talented.”

While speculation is swirling about what could have caused the dramatic, sudden change of plans, what can’t be ignored is that Fortress CEO Scott Purcell allegedly took millions of dollars from the now-bankrupt Prime Trust and then went on to found Fortress.

Read more: Fortress Trust says ‘no loss of funds’ as its customers’ crypto was stolen

Hack, losses, and questions

Prime Trust, which consisted of a similar “incredibly talented” team, has been accused of siphoning customer funds to purchase digital assets, including Terra and Luna in 2022. The Nevada-based trust was forced into bankruptcy after losing a catastrophic amount of money despite raising hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital.

Meanwhile, Fortress Trust, which began on the heels of the collapse of Prime Trust and with the same former CEO (Purcell), has already suffered a hack and loss of funds. Whether or not the hack was far more extensive than what’s been admitted to has yet to be determined, but there are seemingly few other obvious reasons for Ripple to back out of the deal.

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Since 2022, Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten has been alleging criminal conduct by Ripple executives. Last week, Ripple announced its acquisition of Swan Bitcoin’s major custodian, Fortress Trust.

Whoops.

A few months ago, Swan Bitcoin transitioned from Prime Trust to Fortress Trust and BitGo. Prime Trust is in bankruptcy proceedings. Fortress Trust also allegedly lost funds from its hot wallets in another security incident. Ripple is allegedly making harmed Fortress customers whole as part of its acquisition.

Swan Bitcoin claims that although Fortress lost funds in a security incident, that incident did not involve Swan Bitcoin’s customers. It claims, “Swan client coins are in insured cold wallets at BitGo and did not move during the reported incident at Fortress. The coins are protected by video calls and physical access, and are not subject to any incidents at Fortress.”

Moreover, Klippsten claims that Lloyd’s of London underwrote insurance of up to $250 million per bitcoin wallet for some of Swan Bitcoin’s customers, with no wallet holding more than $250 million.

In any case, Ripple is acquiring Fortress Trust. Suddenly, Klippsten has new, wealthier, and more powerful higher-ups — that he has repeatedly claimed are criminals.

Klippsten claimed his suitors committed financial crimes

• On March 29, 2022, Klippsten alleged, “Chris Larsen from Ripple is a scam artist. He lies about Bitcoin, professionally, to enrich himself.”
• That same day, Klippsten wrote, “Chris Larsen is one of the worst actors in the entire crypto space, who’s made a living from lies, misinformation, and securities fraud.”
• On November 8, 2022, Klippsten concluded, “Ripple is a scam.”
• On December 7, 2022, Klippsten tweeted, “Here’s hoping Larsen shares a cell with SBF.”
• On December 18, 2022, Klippsten called Larsen a “criminal scam artist.”
• On March 24 of this year, Klippsten alleged that Chris Larsen has “been pumping and dumping XRP unregistered securities on unsuspecting retail for the last decade.”
• On March 25, 2023, Klippsten alleged that “Chris Larsen and the other owners of Ripple/XRP” were perpetrating “a criminal game of securities fraud.”

In an ultimate twist of irony, Ripple announced it was acquiring the primary custodian of Klippsten’s Swan Bitcoin, Fortress Trust, on September 8, 2023.

Swan CEO made repeated claims of Ripple’s criminal conduct

Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten has a history of criticizing Ripple, often to the annoyance of the “XRP Army.” In addition to claims about civil misconduct, he also made claims about criminal acts.

Klippsten has claimed Larsen, a billionaire co-founder of Ripple, has acted as a “criminal scam artist,” made a living from professional lies, committed securities fraud, and pump-and-dumped unregistered securities onto retail victims.

He noted that Larsen contributed up to $5 million for Greenpeace’s anti-Bitcoin mining ad campaign against Bitcoin. Klippsten also retweeted a post by Coin Center’s Neeraj Agrawal, who accused Larsen of preferring “a world where CEOs can centrally control the future of a cryptocurrency network.”

Klippsten has called Chris Larsen “anti-human.” He repeated that sentiment by calling Greenpeace “anti-Bitcoin, anti-freedom, anti-human” over its opposition to Bitcoin, emphasizing that Larsen was funding its anti-Bitcoin advertisements.

Although the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has not filed (and as a civil enforcement agency, never will file) a criminal lawsuit against Ripple, commissioners’ civil lawsuit against Ripple is well into its second year. Commissioners alleged that Ripple, including Larsen, raised $1.3 billion in unregistered securities sales. Commissioners are also appealing a court ruling that handed Ripple a partial victory.

Read more: SEC wants 2nd Circuit to overrule Ripple XRP decision

Klippsten can be snarky at times. He teased XRP holders by suggesting selling XRP to buy bitcoin on Swan Bitcoin. And finally, in case Klippsten wasn’t perfectly clear, he believes the current suitor of his company’s primary custodian is an outright scam.

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