Ellen, Ashton, Ripple and $4 Million!

I know many of you may have seen this before, but I also expect many others have never even heard about it.

This happened back in 2018 back when the entire crypto space was much, much smaller.

If you think we don’t have clarity and certainty now, we really didn’t have it back then.

Back then, there was still a risk that Bitcoin would go to $0 or that governments would ban it (for real, including the U.S.A.).

Buying crypto has become much less risk now (in this author’s humble opinion) now that you see the major financial institutions like Goldman and JP Morgan getting into the game.

But back then?

Back then it was Fringe with a capital “F”.

And then this happened and even looking back on it today it still strikes me as a watershed moment.

Ashton Kutcher, one of the most forward-thinking tech investors and entrepreneurs, went on the Ellen Show (back then still the top show on daytime TV before all the scandals) and he surprised Ellen with a $4 million donation.

Nice, right?

Cute story.

“Cool story bro”.

But that’s not the shocking part.

The shocking part was he made the donation with XRP and he did it live on the air.

In four sections Ellen and the entire audience and everyone viewing at home got to see FOUR MILLION DOLLARS transfer instantly in less than four seconds, all without banks or intermediaries.

No need to go into Wells Fargo and institute a wire…

No writing a check…

No cashier’s check…

No money order…

Not even cash!

This was fast, secure and world-changing.

Still is!

And so for everyone who has never seen this or for those of you who forgot about it, please enjoy this clip:

Here is what CNBC reported at the time:

Actor and noted tech investor Ashton Kutcher surprised Ellen DeGeneres on Wednesday with a large donation to the talk show host’s wildlife charity on behalf of cryptocurrency startup Ripple.

The twist? The $4 million that Kutcher and his business partner, Guy Oseary, presented to The Ellen DeGeneres Wildlife Fund comes in the form of Ripple’s XRP coin — currently third most-valuable cryptocurrency on the market, behind Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Kutcher surprised DeGeneres with the donation, on behalf of Ripple, live on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on NBC.

“You’re always thinking about everyone else,” Kutcher told DeGeneres. “We wanted to show you that people are thinking about you.”

Kutcher joked that, typically, such a large donation might be accompanied by a “big, giant check,” but the actor instead had DeGeneres push a button on his phone that transferred millions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency to the charity instantly.

Kutcher and Oseary (a friend of DeGeneres’ who is a talent manager for acts like Madonna and U2) are invested in Ripple through their tech investment fund, Sound Ventures. The fund has also invested in tech startups such as cloud-based business software company Zenefits, while Kutcher himself was also an early backer of major startups like Airbnb and Uber.

Here’s what you need to know about Ripple and XRP.

“Ripple is basically a platform to allow people to transfer money from bank account to bank account, person to person, really securely, really simply, really quickly,” said Kutcher, a noted fan of the blockchain technology that supports cryptocurrency, while describing what Ripple does on DeGeneres’ show.

First released in 2012, San Francisco-based Ripple’s XRP is a digital currency that users on the company’s network use to perform global transactions. Ripple bills itself as a platform where banks and other global financial institutions can make fast and secure financial payments using XRP.

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