‘They’re Not Waiting Anymore’: Evernorth CEO On A Decade-Long Wall Street U-Turn On XRP

Evernorth CEO Ashish Birla said $RLUSD’s expansion on the $XRP Ledger is central to deepening liquidity across the network, describing the dollar-backed stablecoin as “paramount” to $XRP’s broader ecosystem. He said $RLUSD’s share of $XRP Ledger supply climbed from roughly 20% to 34%, a jump he called 642% growth.

Birla tied that growth directly to how global finance already operates. “Almost every financial product, equities, gold, and so forth, is usually paired and settled with US dollars,” he said, arguing a high-quality dollar stablecoin on the ledger is fundamental to building deeper order books, both on the $XRP Ledger’s native exchange and decentralized platforms handling global trade.

Total Tokenized Asset Value Hits Record $4.4 Billion

The $XRP Ledger’s total tokenized real-world asset value has reached a record $4.4 billion, according to Birla, a figure he pointed to as evidence institutional participation is accelerating rather than waiting on the sidelines.

Birla contrasted his experience meeting Wall Street institutions roughly a decade ago with more recent conversations. A decade back, he said, institutions nodded along to $XRP and blockchain pitches but had no concrete plans, offering only proof-of-concept experiments. This past summer, meeting the same tier of institutions again, he found a different posture entirely. “They’re not waiting,” Birla said. “They are building teams. They are deploying. In their mind, this is happening.”

He pointed to BlackRock’s involvement through its BUIDL fund as one example of that institutional shift, alongside continued regulatory clarity from the SEC under Chairman Paul Atkins.

Evernorth’s Path to a Nasdaq Listing

Evernorth is progressing toward a Nasdaq listing pending a SPAC shareholder vote and final approvals. If the vote succeeds and the listing closes, Evernorth shares would trade under the ticker XRPN.

What the $XRP Liquidity Report Shows About Retail Activity

Asked why retail account activity on the $XRP Ledger hasn’t shown the same growth as institutional flows, Birla pointed to Evernorth’s regularly published $XRP Liquidity Report, which the company uses to track ecosystem health. He said the data suggests larger institutional accounts are now driving a growing share of network volume, calling that a strong institutional signal rather than a sign retail participation is weakening.

Birla acknowledged room for improvement on the retail side, though. He said the broader $XRP ecosystem needs to build more features and use cases specifically aimed at drawing everyday users into using and building on the network, calling it an area of further growth opportunity rather than a current weakness.