Evernorth Holdings Inc., a Ripple-backed digital asset venture, announced on October 20, 2025, plans to go public on Nasdaq through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Armada Acquisition Corp II (ticker: AACI).
The deal is expected to raise over $1 billion in gross proceeds and close in Q1 2026, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals. The primary goal is to create the world’s largest publicly traded institutional XRP treasury, focusing on accumulating and managing XRP—the native token of the XRP Ledger, currently the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap around $150 billion as of October 21, 2025.
The raise includes:$200 million from Japan’s SBI Holdings. Investments from Ripple Labs, Rippleworks, Pantera Capital, Kraken Ventures, GSR Markets, and Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen.
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Most net proceeds after operational costs will fund open-market XRP purchases to build a resilient treasury. This positions Evernorth as a regulated vehicle for institutions to gain liquid exposure to XRP, blending traditional finance (TradFi) strategies like lending with decentralized finance (DeFi) yields.
Asheesh Birla, former Ripple executive and board member stepping down from Ripple’s board to lead Evernorth. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, General Counsel Stuart Alderoty, and CTO David Schwartz.
Beyond passive holding, Evernorth aims to grow XRP per share via liquidity provisioning, staking, and tokenized asset integration. It will run XRP validators and incorporate Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin for DeFi.
Birla emphasized: “Evernorth is built to provide investors more than just exposure to XRP’s price… while supporting XRP’s utility and adoption.” This move aligns with Ripple’s push for XRP in corporate treasuries, following its $1 billion acquisition of GTreasury last week to target the multi-trillion-dollar treasury market.
XRP surged past $2.50 on October 20 up from a dip below $1.90, with $73.9 million in ETP inflows and 25% volume spike. Under a crypto-friendly U.S. administration, this signals accelerating institutional adoption. XRP discussions on X exploded, with over 317,500 large-holder wallets at record highs.
Similar to Ethereum-focused treasuries (e.g., SharpLink’s $3.5B ETH hoard), but Evernorth targets XRP’s strengths in payments and remittances.
XRP Ledger (XRPL) is a decentralized, open-source blockchain designed for fast, low-cost transactions, primarily for payments and remittances. Validators play a critical role in its operation, ensuring the network’s integrity and consensus.
Validators are nodes computers in the XRP Ledger network that participate in the consensus process to validate and agree on the order and validity of transactions. Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, which use proof-of-work or proof-of-stake, XRPL uses the XRP Ledger Consensus Protocol (a variant of Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance).
This allows for rapid transaction confirmation (3-5 seconds) and high throughput (up to 1,500 transactions per second). Validators collect proposed transactions, verify their correctness (e.g., sufficient funds, valid signatures), and vote to reach consensus on which transactions to include in the ledger’s next state.
Ripple publishes a default UNL, but operators can customize their lists, promoting decentralization. Overlap in UNLs ensures network agreement, but diversity prevents centralized control.
Running a validator is lightweight, requiring modest hardware (e.g., a server with 8GB RAM, 100GB SSD) and a stable internet connection, making it accessible for institutions like Evernorth. Validators must be reliable and secure, as malicious or faulty validators could disrupt consensus if they dominate a UNL.
Evernorth’s Validator Strategy
Evernorth, as mentioned in the context of its $1B raise for an XRP treasury, plans to operate XRPL validators. This aligns with its goal to actively manage its XRP holdings and support the ecosystem. Running validators allows Evernorth to contribute to XRPL’s governance, ensuring transaction reliability and network uptime, which enhances XRP’s credibility for institutional adoption.
By validating transactions, Evernorth reinforces XRP’s utility in payments and DeFi, potentially increasing its treasury’s value through broader adoption. Validators don’t earn XRP, but Evernorth’s participation could yield indirect benefits, like signaling commitment to investors and enabling DeFi strategies.
More validators, especially from diverse entities like Evernorth, reduce reliance on Ripple or any single party, strengthening XRPL’s resilience. Validators enable XRPL’s high transaction throughput, critical for its use in global payments via RippleNet’s cross-border transfers.
For Evernorth’s treasury, running validators signals a long-term commitment to XRPL, reassuring investors about XRP’s stability and utility. Ripple has reduced its share of trusted validators to under 10%, per Ripple’s Q3 2025 report, countering earlier centralization critiques.
By joining as a validator, Evernorth adds institutional credibility, especially under a crypto-friendly U.S. regulatory environment, potentially boosting XRP’s market perception (XRP recently hit $2.50, with 317,500 large-holder wallets).
As a public company post-SPAC, Evernorth’s validator operations may face SEC or global regulatory oversight, especially if tied to DeFi. Validator effectiveness relies on a robust UNL. Poorly chosen peers could risk consensus failures, though XRPL’s design mitigates this.
This development could catalyze XRP’s integration into capital markets, but as with all crypto ventures, outcomes depend on execution and macro factors like Fed policy.