A self-made billionaire couple gave San Francisco State University a $25 million gift, with a large portion of the donation made in XRP, making it one of the biggest cryptocurrency contributions to US higher education at the time. Chris Larsen, an SF State alumnus, and his wife Lyna Lam donated to the Rippleworks Foundation in April 2019. The gift established funds for the university’s College of Business and supported new initiatives focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and financial technology. According to San Francisco State University, the XRP contribution was the institution’s first digital asset donation and ranked among the largest digital asset gifts made to a US university. The donation also led California State University to rename the College of Business the Lam Family College of Business. The couple had supported SF State since 2001, with previous contributions exceeding $800,000 for scholarships, education, science and business initiatives. The gift strengthened the university’s ability to expand opportunities for students exploring emerging technologies and business models. It also highlighted the growing role of cryptocurrency philanthropy in higher education, showing how digital assets could support academic programmes and institutional development.
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