XRP News: Brad Garlinghouse Explains Why Ripple Handed XRP To Evernorth

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has explained why the company contributed a significant amount of XRP to Evernorth, the XRP treasury company that recently debuted on Nasdaq. Speaking at Nasdaq on the company’s listing day, he said the move fits Ripple’s long-standing approach of investing in its own ecosystem, and that his trust in Evernorth’s leadership sealed the decision.

Why Ripple backed Evernorth

Asked why Ripple put its tokens into Evernorth, Garlinghouse said supporting the community has been part of Ripple’s strategy “since really its inception.” That support has sometimes reached beyond XRP, he added, because Ripple believes in “a multi-chain world.”

The deciding factor was Evernorth CEO Asheesh Birla, who previously worked under Garlinghouse at Ripple and later sat on its board. “When Asheesh raised his hand and expressed interest, that to me cemented our interests,” Garlinghouse said.

He described Birla as “an extraordinary leader” who has shown “unique acumen around talent, around strategy,” both at Ripple and now at Evernorth.

How it helps XRP

Garlinghouse said Evernorth’s listing strengthens the XRP ecosystem in three ways:

• Liquidity and trust: The listing “furthers liquidity” and “trust in the XRP ecosystem,” he said.
• New investors: A listed company opens XRP to people who cannot easily access crypto markets directly. “Just that is a major step,” he said.
• More than buy-and-hold: Evernorth plans to use on-chain and off-chain strategies to earn yield and build institutional products, which he said “positions XRP to perform really well.”

He also explained how hard it has been to reach this point. “There were a couple hundred various DATs trying to get public,” he said, referring to digital asset treasury companies. “The fact that we are here today with XRP trading is a big deal.”

“Ripple was on to something”

Garlinghouse reflected on Ripple’s years as an outsider in crypto. Many early crypto users held a strongly anti-establishment view, and Ripple drew criticism for building for banks and traditional finance.

“For a bunch of years, Ripple was a controversial contrarian because we were leaning into TradFi as our core customer set,” he said. Now the market has come around, and “a lot of other players in the industry recognise that hey, maybe Ripple was on to something there.”

The hard years are not over

Garlinghouse stopped short of declaring victory. “I’m not ready to say the hard years are behind us,” he said.

Still, he believes markets are underestimating the shift in the US. The United States accounts for about 22% of global GDP and spent years “leaning out” on crypto, he said. Now its institutions are “leaning in like they never have before.”