Crypto treasury companies have been walloped in recent months. But one executive says there’s no better time to take the business model public.
“The timing couldn’t be more perfect,” Asheesh Birla, CEO of XRP treasury Evernorth Holdings, told Nasdaq MarketSite on Thursday.
“We have the right kind of regulation, administration, and institutions ready to adopt.”
Evernorth is preparing to go public through a SPAC merger with Armada Acquisition Corp II. Once finalised, it will trade under ticker XRPN on Nasdaq.
Crypto had a banner year in 2025, fuelled by Donald Trump’s return to the White House. As his administration pushed for crypto-friendly legislation and appointed regulators with ties to the industry, major cryptocurrencies, including XRP, hit all-time highs.
But the rally fizzled as the year came to a close, and treasury companies — once among the hottest investments on Wall Street — saw their valuations collapse. As capital has dried up, many have stopped purchasing crypto altogether.
Strategy made up 98% of last week’s Bitcoin treasury purchases. In the Ethereum sector, it’s mostly Bitmine making the buys.
XRP treasuries have largely stopped their buying as well.
Evernorth holds 388 million XRP tokens bought at an average price of $2.44, according to CryptoQuant data. With XRP currently trading around $2.09, Evernorth is sitting millions in unrealised losses — its holdings are worth approximately $812 million against a $948 million cost basis.
Handling it all
Despite the disinterest in treasuries, Birla said Evernorth does more than offer companies exposure to the price of XRP — it handles the custody, compliance, and security obligations they would have if they purchased the cryptocurrency directly.
“A large lion’s share just wanna buy a public stock,” Birla said. “We made it as easy as buying a public stock.”
Birla also said his company will generate yield on its XRP holdings and use the proceeds to buy even more tokens.
ETF tailwinds
But some winds are blowing in XRP’s favour.
XRP exchange-traded funds have had a wildly successful launch, with over $1.2 billion accumulated since November with only one day of outflows, according to SoSoValue. That outpaces both Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in that span.
“Record-breaking last few weeks for XRP ETFs,” Birla said. “That shows there’s demand to get exposure to XRP.”
Build or die
Birla argues two factors will determine which XRP treasuries survive.
“You have to have scale. Evernorth is the largest XRP treasury out there,” he said. “You can’t be passive. They have to be active stewards, helping the XRP ecosystem flourish and develop.”
Other industry market watchers say the same.
“XRP is still figuring out its product-market fit,” Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan toldDL News. “How it executes in 2026 will determine whether this becomes one of the most successful ETF launches in the market, or whether that demand fizzles out.”
Pedro Solimano is DL News’ markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.