Shaquille ONeal performs at the TAO Group In Minneapolis For Big Game Weekend on February 2, 2018 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

(Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Shaq takes the L on NFT lawsuit, agrees to pay $11 million

Astrals featured 10,000 “metaverse-ready avatars” on solana.

11/19/24 2:17PM

Shaquille O’Neal is putting his NFT problems behind him.

The basketball legend and celebrity DJ agreed to an $11 million settlement following a lawsuit brought by investors in Astrals, a failed Solana-based NFT project that touted 10,000 “metaverse-ready avatars.” That’s according to Decrypt, which reports that if the settlement is approved by the court it would resolve Shaq’s NFT-related legal troubles.

Shaq and his son launched Astrals in March of 2022. The suit claimed that investors in the project had purchased unregistered securities, which Shaq reportedly hyped at his gigs as “DJ Diesel.”

While Astrals may have lost steam, its home blockchain’s native token is on fire: solana is up more than 300% over the past year.

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Ripple launches treasury platform to manage cash and cryptocurrencies

Ripple, the firm closely tied to the fifth-largest cryptocurrency, XRP, introduced a new treasury platform for digital asset and traditional cash management for users like financial officers, treasurers, and accountants.

Ripple’s move comes more than three months after it acquired treasury software provider GTreasury for $1 billion, one of several steps to grow the firm’s position in corporate finance.

Combining Ripple’s blockchain rails and GTreasury’s software, the new platform’s goal is to simplify treasury operations. It eliminates settlement delays with payment times of three to five seconds and optimizes yield from working capital 24/7 through tokenized money market funds such as BlackRock’s BUIDL and overnight secure repo markets with RLUSD, according to a Tuesday blog post.

Ripple Treasury also aims to provide “real-time cash positions, automated forecasting, and seamless reporting across traditional cash, digital assets, RLUSD, and XRP holdings,” the blog post stated.

Last year, Ripple filed its national banking license application with the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, while the firm’s subsidiary Standard Custody & Trust Company applied for a Federal Reserve master account, which would allow Ripple to hold RLUSD reserves directly with the Fed.

XRP has seen $2.4 billion in trading volume in the last 24 hours, increasing 1.8% in the period. The token’s all-time high was set in July 2025 at $3.65. Meanwhile, spot XRP ETFs had nearly $9.2 million worth of inflows on Tuesday, bringing cumulative inflows to $1.4 billion.

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Bitcoin is underperforming precious metals now, but experts warn of “short-sighted” view

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