Evernorth’s CEO reveals how the firm is building XRP’s first institutional treasury model, targeting yield, DeFi growth, and a Nasdaq listing under XRPN.
Institutional DeFi has been a talking point for years. Evernorth is now putting real capital behind it. The company calls itself the largest XRP digital asset treasury in existence, and its CEO is making the case that XRP has outgrown its payments-only identity.
Ashish Burla, CEO of @EvernorthXRP, laid it all out in a recent episode of the Onchain Economy podcast. According to RippleXDev on X, Burla outlined three pillars: the first institutional XRP treasury model, yield and liquidity strategies, and DeFi participation aimed at long-term growth on the XRP ledger.
The timing isn’t random. Evernorth has announced plans to list on Nasdaq under the ticker XRPN, a move that would put regulated XRP exposure directly in the hands of institutional investors.
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XRP Is No Longer Just a Payments Asset
In the Onchain Economy video, Burla described the firm’s core approach. Evernorth takes XRP held in its treasury and deploys it into yield-bearing instruments. The yield is real. The DeFi protocols benefit. Institutions get exposure they couldn’t access before.
“What Evernorth does is it makes it easy for institutions to bring capital to the entire XRP ecosystem,” Burla said in the video. That capital doesn’t just sit. It gets routed into DeFi products on the XRP ledger, generating returns while helping protocols grow.
Three things are happening at once, according to Burla. Regulatory clarity around XRP has finally arrived. The DeFi ecosystem on XRPL is gaining real traction. And institutional capital is now ready to cross into that space. The convergence of all three is what Evernorth is built for.
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The Strategy Behind the Treasury
Evernorth is not a passive holder. Burla has been clear about that. The firm plans to run a validator on the XRP ledger. It plans to bring new DeFi partners to XRPL. It intends to develop new protocol specifications directly on-chain.
That active stewardship model is a departure from how most crypto treasuries operate. Strategy, for example, holds bitcoin and accumulates. That model has drawn massive institutional attention. Evernorth is taking a different route. The treasury is the entry point, but deploying it is the actual product.
Staking and DeFi yield participation are both in scope. Burla mentioned these explicitly, framing them as ways XRP holders can do more with their assets on-chain. The firm also said it will develop specs for new protocol types it wants to see live on XRPL.
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What the Nasdaq Listing Changes
The XRPN ticker isn’t just optics. Listing on Nasdaq means regulated exposure, meaning pension funds, asset managers, and institutional desks can touch XRP without holding the asset directly. That’s the gap Evernorth is trying to close.
Burla has spent a decade building in the XRP space, per his own account in the Onchain Economy episode. The Nasdaq move signals the product is no longer in pilot mode.
Institutions have been circling. BlackRock’s push into staked Ethereum ETF territory shows the broader appetite for yield-generating, regulated crypto vehicles. Evernorth is making a similar bet on XRP, but with a treasury-first model that keeps the asset working on-chain rather than sitting in a custodian vault.
RippleXDev, posting on X, framed it plainly: XRP is evolving from a payments asset to a balance sheet instrument. Evernorth is how that transition gets funded.
