Evernorth chief executive Asheesh Birla says the company’s planned $1 billion war chest for XRP is only a starting line, outlining an active-management strategy designed to recycle yield into additional purchases and position the treasury vehicle for a Nasdaq debut under the ticker XRPN in the first quarter of 2026.
In a new interview on the Thinking Crypto podcast, Birla confirmed that Evernorth’s capital plan is open-ended rather than capped. “We don’t have any plans to stop […] the idea is not to stop at a billion in treasury,” he said, adding that the firm will pursue additional opportunities to scale once its initial transaction closes.
Evernorth’s XRP Strategy
Birla framed Evernorth as a pure-play digital asset treasury—“100% focused on XRP”—built to make institutional and mainstream exposure “as easy as buying Tesla stock in your brokerage account.” He said Evernorth’s model differs from passive products because it will deploy the tokens across both traditional finance and DeFi strategies, with a single yardstick for success: “The metric we are maximizing for is XRP per share.” He was explicit that cash flows generated by those strategies won’t be paid out as dividends but instead will be redeployed into the core asset. “We’ll use that yield to buy more XRP for the treasury.”
On trading venue plans, Birla clarified the timeline that sparked recent attention: “You saw the ticker symbol XRPN go live […] we expect that to happen sometime in quarter 1 of 2026.” At launch, he said, investors who can access Nasdaq through standard brokerage platforms would be able to buy the stock, with international market expansion—especially Japan and Korea—set as a near-term priority. “Having SBI participate in Evernorth’s financing is going to potentially help unlock those Asian markets for us,” he noted, citing a backer list that includes SBI, Ripple, and Arrington Capital.
The buying program itself will use multiple routes to market. “We’ll be using all mechanisms available to buy XRP […] we want to make sure that we’re balanced and measured,” Birla explained, highlighting how improved market depth and “hundreds” of global trading venues make accumulation more practical today than in crypto’s early exchange era. He also pointed to the asset’s liquidity profile as a draw for an active treasury, saying it ranks among the top traded digital assets by volume on many venues.
A significant plank of Evernorth’s edge, Birla argued, is its plan to originate and participate in on-ledger yield. “We’re cultivating yield strategies directly on the XRP Ledger,” he said, describing ongoing discussions with protocols—including Flare—once the initial transaction is completed. The intent is to create a bridge for “real capital” into native DeFi, which he believes has matured enough to compete with traditional finance but still lacks the institutional adapters that accelerate growth.
Stablecoins are a key part of that plumbing, and Birla suggested Ripple’s RLUSD—which he described as “growing really quickly”—will likely be used as an on- and off-ramp for DeFi participation, while stressing Evernorth will still optimize its balance sheet around the token: “We want to make sure that we are optimizing for XRP […] I have a feeling that Ripple RLUSD […] is going to play a big part in that.”
Birla positioned the timing as favorable, crediting a policy turn in the United States and abroad. He cited the stablecoin-focused Genius Act’s passage and the prospect of broader market-structure legislation such as the Clarity Act as catalysts that could mirror the internet’s regulatory tailwinds in the 1990s. “Good regulation, good legislation helps spur innovation and growth,” he said.
He contrasted Evernorth’s active approach with potential exchange-traded funds, saying both can coexist. “One big difference between an ETF and a digital asset treasury like Evernorth is that […] it’s an active treasury. We are going to be looking at yield strategies to maximize XRP per share.”
Asked about risk management through a downturn, Birla pointed to experience and tooling rather than market timing. “Some of the best opportunities are available in downturns,” he said. “We’re busy thinking about how to build the right kind of risk tools […] measure twice and cut once.”
The strategic throughline is straightforward: accumulate and actively deploy XRP, reinvest proceeds into more XRP, and list a publicly tradable equity that packages this exposure for institutions and mainstream brokerage users. Or, as Birla put it, “Let’s make it as easy as buying [a] stock […] just like you buy that stock, you can buy [XRPN] and you get exposure to XRP as an asset class.” And on the accumulation plan itself, he left little doubt about the trajectory: “$1 billion” is a milestone—not a ceiling.
At press time, XRP traded at $2.40.
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