for many months $XRP X and YouTube influencers are promising their followers that American Express is about to embrace it. $XRP. On March 30th, the long-awaited announcement was finally made.
It turns out that the NFL sponsorship deal with the credit card giant had nothing to do with it. $XRP. Yesterday, AmEx became the NFL’s official payment partner for advance tickets, on-site experiences, game benefits, and more.
There is not a single mention of Ripple or its blockchain.
Hype had been building for months, reaching a crescendo just hours before the announcement.
The same false promises have been making a comeback in viral waves over the years.
A pattern of hype over the years
$XRP Influencers are predicting Amex usage. $XRP Ledger (XRPL) has an embarrassing number of times.
Months and even years ago, influencers claimed the deal with AmEx was “done” with a slew of diagrams, meeting videos, audio clips, and annotated screenshots.
January 2025 $XRP Army told followers that Garlinghouse disclosed its partnership with AmEx under a non-disclosure agreement.
In March 2025, another influencer posted that Amex had confirmed production of crypto cards with Ripple.
More by July 2025 $XRP The influencer cited an infographic of unknown origin claiming that AmEx is somehow using XRPL.
On YouTube, dozens of videos promote the same false narrative. Creators repackaged old footage as breaking news.
American Express’s announcement has nothing to do with it. $XRP.
It’s an NFL partnership.
Block all influencers who told you about this $XRP And I sold hopium ❤️. https://t.co/ANVemhnzpu
— Veterinarian (@Vet_X0) March 30, 2026
What really happened in 2017
The entire myth goes back to one real event. In November 2017, Amex and Ripple announced a pilot for cross-border business payments between the US and UK via RippleNet.
Importantly, the pilot $XRP coin. “The technology we developed decouples connectivity from cryptocurrencies and tokens,” a Ripple executive told CNBC at the time.
He explained that AmEx can use Ripple to exchange value from one fiat currency to another “without the need for an intermediate blockchain currency.” Treacher added: $XRP “Later on, it’s going to be about evolutionary dynamics and other players.”
No, DTCC did not settle $4,000 trillion in XRPL
That was never the case. Amex hired pilots instead of expanding them. $XRPor pursued a deal with Ripple after 2017. AmEx has not confirmed any new transactions. $XRP Recent viral claims have been labeled as fake and misleading.
Still, the AmEx rumors started then. $XRP Influencers kept recycling it for years.
of $XRP Engagement economy of non-existent partnerships
$XRP Influencers have turned the gap between RippleNet partnerships and actual XRPL usage into a cottage industry.
The pattern is consistent. Influencers confuse Ripplenet and RippleNet, citing details about blockchain pilots from several years ago $XRP Add token usage, “emergency,” “incoming,” or emergency siren emojis, and easily collect engagement on social media.
To make matters worse, some posts promoted unrelated tokens alongside the Amex fiction. A Binance Square user bundled a fake announcement with a promotion for an unrelated token that purportedly benefited from a non-existent AmEx-XRPL trade.
Protoss has previously documented hundreds of Ripple partnership announcements that minimized Ripple usage. $XRPMoneyGram to the Central Bank of Bhutan.
$XRP It’s down 29% since the beginning of the year. AmEx, on the other hand, typically sells football tickets using dollars.
