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XRP is the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capor the total value of all its coinswhich currently stands at just over $196 billion, according to data from Yahoo Finance. For comparison, leading crypto Bitcoin has a market cap of 2.3 trillion and Ethereum, the No. 2 coin, has a market cap of $469 billion. But over the past 24 hours, XRP has seen its price surge by more than 7.7% as of the time of this writing. Currently, XRP is valued at $3.30 per coin. But why? It likely all comes down to one big thing. SEC and Ripple agree to drop lawsuits Yesterday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Labs, a company that offers cross-border payment solutions and is also one of the largest holders of XRP, both agreed to drop legal appeals in a court battle that has lasted for years. As CoinTelegraph reports, the SEC and Ripple submitted a joint petition to the Second Circuit Appeals Court asking the judge to dismiss the cross-appeal from both parties in the ongoing suit. As previously noted by Reuters, the two entities have been locked in a legal dispute, with the SEC alleging that Ripple had violated securities laws by selling XRP. In 2023, a judge ruled that Ripples sale of XRP on public exchanges was legal, but that its sales of the coins to institutional investors were not. Now that the lawsuit has been settled, CoinTelegraph points out, the ruling from the 2023 judgment stands: Ripple will pay a $125 million fine to the SEC, well below the $2 billion the agency sought. Announcing the joint filings for dismissal, Ripples chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, wrote in a post on X, The end . . . and now back to business. In other words, the matter appears to be fully settled, and now Ripple can put its focus back on its business interests, which includes a stablecoin platform it just purchased for $200 million. A spokesperson for Ripple referred Fast Company to Alderoty’s tweet. The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. With the threat of an ongoing lawsuit apparently out of the waywhich could have deemed XRP a security, and thus open it to more regulatory oversightXRP is up significantly in early trading on Friday. XRPs wild summer XRP has seen volatility over the last several weeks. On July 8, the coin was hovering between the $2.29 and $2.42 range, according to Yahoo Finance data. By July 20, it surged to close at over $3.55. But by the beginning of August, it fell to below $2.75 again. But now with the news of the settlement being digested by investors, XRP is up 7.7% to $3.30 per coin. Todays surge is further representative of a good run for the digital asset over the past year. Since the beginning of 2025, XRP is up more than 59%. And over the past 12 months, the coin is up more than a staggering 438%.
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If youre in the mood for a yummy and extremely affordable burger today, youll be glad to know that the hamburger fast-food chain Whataburger is offering them for just 75 cents. Here’s why, and how to get your burger for less than a buck. Whataburger turns 75 today Headquartered in San Antonio, Whataburger was first founded in Corpus Christi, Texas, exactly 75 years ago today, on August 8, 1950. Since then, the company has expanded to more than 1,100 locations across 17 states. The burger chain, which was one of Fast Companys 2024 Brands that Matter, actively engages with its fans through outreach events. And today, the company is giving back to those fans in several ways in honor of its birthday. Whataburger is giving away limited edition 75th anniversary cups and, in its founding hometown of Corpus Christi, is holding an Orange Out night, featuring a minor league baseball game, giving away Whataguy masks and capes, and providing an all-orange fireworks display. But today the company is also giving everyone the opportunity to buy a Whataburger for just 75 cents. How to get a Whataburger for just 75 cents Whataburger is making it easy to get one of their burgers for just 75 cents today. The deal is available to anyone who signs up to be a Whataburger Rewards member and downloads the Whataburger app. Heres how Whataburger says you can get your classic No. 1 Whataburger for just 75 cents: Sign up for a Whataburger Rewards account here. Download the Whataburger app (iOS or Android). In the app, redeem the option to get a classic No. 1 Whataburger for just 75 cents. But be sure to act fast Whataburger says the 75-cent burger offer runs today only (Friday, August 8), and only from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time. Each Whataburger Rewards account is limited to one 75-cent burger. Full details of Whataburgers 75th birthday offering can be found here.
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Greetings, salutations, and thanks for reading Fast Companys Plugged In. On August 4, Amazon announced that it was restructuring its Wondery podcast studio. The companys CEO and about 110 employees are leaving. Those who remain are being divvied between Amazon’s audiobook arm Audible and a new group called Creator Services, reported The New York Timess Jessica Testa. Observers, including my colleague Grace Snelling, connected Amazons reevaluation of Wonderys future with YouTubes emergence as, arguably, podcastings dominant platform. As of October 2024, according to Edison Research, the video giant had more podcast listeners than Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Calling podcast fans listeners may already be an anachronism, though: In February of this year, YouTube itself claimed 1 billion podcast viewers. Overall, says Edison, Americans spend 773 million hours per week consuming podcasts, up more than 350% in a decade. That translates into 7.7 hours per week per podcast consumer. The medium has changed tremendously in those 10 years. Back in 2015, the hottest podcast was the spellbinding true-crime show Serial, which won a Peabody Award that April after debuting in October 2014. It proved that podcastinglike terrestrial radio in its pre-TV golden agecould conjure up a theater of the mind. A podcast could keep you on the edge of your seat, maybe even more so because you provided the visuals yourself. In Serials wake, plenty of compelling narrative podcasts did emerge. Still, the field always seemed a little stunted. True crime provided a disproportionate percentage of shows, as you can tell from the titles of such Wondery series as Dr. Death, Killer Privilege, Morbid, American Scandal, and Blood and Vines. As engrossing as tales of murder and scandal can be, I expected more kinds of stories to emerge over time. Instead, storytelling in general has been on the wane. Podcasting is now awash in talking headshosts gabbing with guests about a given topic, most often relating to current events. Im not knocking shows dedicated to discussion of news of the day: I consume scads of them and appear on my share. Yet I do feel a twinge of sadness that theyve overwhelmed other types of programming. A medium capable of anything has morphed into a giant talk show. This trend helps explain why podcasts have become so important to YouTube, and vice versa. As the medium has focused on conversation, its become typified by hosts who are glib and charismatic, such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy, and Armchair Experts Dax Shepard. You dont have to like all of them to acknowledge that theyre vivid personalities and good at expressing themselves in a memorable way. That gives them a lot in common with the creators who have long attracted mass audiences on YouTube. Some audio-only podcasts are repurposed on YouTube without a real visual element. But the ones that feel at home are full-blown video productions. Sometimes, theyre shot with fancy equipment in a studio and meticulously edited; other times, their production values are reminiscent of a staff meeting held on Zoom. Either way, video podcastings popularity on YouTube shows that it can command attentioneven if all youre seeing is people sitting around and chatting. Now, video podcasts are hardly newIve somehow managed to hold on to a few I downloaded 15 years ago using Apples iTunes, which helped popularize podcasts in the first place. Apples present-day Podcasts app supports video as well. Meanwhile, Spotify has lately been beefing up its video experience, adding features such as the ability to flip back and forth between video Joe Rogan and audio-only Joe Rogan in mid-podcast. Even so, the recent boom in video podcasting may have snuck up on the rest of the industry. And in case you havent noticed, its tough to beat YouTube at creating an environment thats conducive to watching video. App developers taking video at least as seriously as audio might be critical to the future of podcasting, a mode of communication that has thrived in part because its so open. Theres no vast content repository controlled by a single company; instead, podcast feeds run on RSS, which is why you can subscribe to all your favorite shows in the app of your choice. (From 2020 to 2024, when a deal reportedly worth $200 million made The Joe Rogan Experience exclusive to Spotify, it wasnt a podcast by the strictest sense of the term.) By its nature, RSS also respects privacy: Creators can tell how many downloads theyre getting, and can detect subscribers IP addresses, but they cant use data on individual listeners for ad targeting or other purposes. YouTube lets creators pipe RSS feeds of their podcasts onto the platform to automate their distribution. But a pedant might contend that theyre no longer podcasts once they get there. Theyre just YouTube shows monetized via YouTube advertising, inhabiting a parallel universe distinct from RSS-powered podcasting as it exists in other apps. Which is why not all podcasts are available on YouTube and nobody assumes that every YouTube show will be available elsewhere. Last year, Google doubled down on YouTube as its podcasting hub by discontinuing its own podcast app in favor of YouTube Music. As that apps name indicates, its mostly a portal to stuff on YouTube. But it does let you subscribe to podcasts by plugging in their RSS feeds. That preserves a link to podcasting in its most open form, even if its more of a backup than the primary interface. None of this matters much as long as the greater podcast ecosystem beyond YouTube remains viable. Id be alarmed if YouTube started cutting exclusivity deals for popular podcasts, or if its position grew so commanding that creators just didnt bother making their shows available elsewhere. So far, neither scenario is panning out. Heres hoping they never do. Its fine for the lines between podcasting and YouTube to blur a bitas long as they dont fade away altogether. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on FastCompany.comyou can ceck out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company Instagram launches map feature. It looks a lot like Snap MapThe new opt-in tool lets users see friends’ real-time locations, explore creator-recommended spots, and leave notes on a shared map. Read More Character.AI launches social feed to let users interact, create, and share with AI personasThe new Character.AI feed brings social-media-style features to its app, allowing users to post chat snippets, share AI-generated videos, and co-create content with more than 100 million virtual characters. Read More Pinterest’s male audience is booming. Here’s what they’re searching forPinterest now counts more than 171 million male users, driven by Gen Z interest in wellness, grooming, AI tools, and fatherhood content. Read More Roku’s new streaming service, Howdy, looks like McDonald’s. Here’s why it’s geniusThe budget streamer is setting itself apart from the crowd with a color scheme that no one else has dared to try. Read More Inside World, the first-ever human verification brandTools for Humanity CMO John Patroulis talks about the brand strategy behind World, the Orb, and being human in the AI age. Read More Is Elon Musk’s behavior making liberals dislike all EVsnot just Teslas?The ‘Tesla backlash effect’ might be impacting the broader EV market. Read More
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