Evernorth Has 473 Million XRP And An Argument to Why Idle Capital Should Not Exist | Asheesh Birla

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Talking Tokens: Crypto, Onchain Finance, Investing 45 min 2 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 1 month ago
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Why is idle digital‑asset capital a problem and how can it be put to work?

Asheesh Birla 0:00
I don't think you can think of many digital trillion dollar asset classes where the majority of people do nothing with that asset class. It's just buy and hold. Most folks that have digital assets today. Even stable coins, don't do anything with them. They are idle. Most people that have US dollar balances sits in their bank account. So this idea of like idle capital, like we wanna take the friction out of putting all of your capital to work.
Jacquelyn Melinek 0:32
Joining me today is Ashish Birla, the CEO of EverNorth, which is a RippleVack digital asset treasury firm that holds roughly four hundred and seventy-three million XRP tokens and aims to give traditional equity investors the ability to have XRP exposure through a publicly traded entity that's actively being deployed. Ashish, welcome on.
Asheesh Birla 0:51
Thanks for having me.
Jacquelyn Melinek 0:52
Thanks for being here. If our listeners recognize him, he also came on during the uh Talking Tokens mini series we did during Consensus.
Asheesh Birla 0:59
So On the beach. So on the beach.
Jacquelyn Melinek 1:01
I know this isn't the beach, but this is nice. This will do for sure.
Asheesh Birla 1:05
Similar weather.
Jacquelyn Melinek 1:06
Yes. But you did a good job, so now we're giving you a full episode. So I know you are a longtime entrepreneur, blockchain executive with over twenty-five years of experience in Silicon Valley, including board roles at Ripple, MoneyGram, BitSo, and other fintech startups. And at Ripple, you also helped launch its first enterprise crypto product and scaled the company from a small startup to over a thousand employees. What was kind of your thesis behind joining? And what does it kind of differentiate itself from other digital asset treasury firms out there?
Asheesh Birla 1:36
Yeah, well, one, it's been a heck of a journey, uh, you know, being in this space for, you know, over a decade. Uh but what got me excited about this space in the in in you know, early two thousand thirteen was that I really believe that the best use case for blockchain was about financial markets, payments, you know, tokenized assets. It's just taken a lot longer for us to get there, but I feel like Like we're sitting here in New York City and it's happening. Like this future is happening in real time. Uh the numbers that are up and through the right in terms of tokenization and you know, after Ripple I wanted to continue this journey. I don't wanted to pivot into something else. This is why I joined in the first place.
Asheesh Birla 2:19
And so, you know, I thought a digital asset treasury, you know, Evernorth was a good way to continue that journey. I thought it was the right time for capitals to start forming on blockchain and digital asset treasuries, one of the many things I think they're going to do in the future is help bridge traditional capital to on-chain, you know, blockchain. Capital.
Jacquelyn Melinek 2:41
Yeah. Do you think it's moving faster, slower, or like on track as expected?
Asheesh Birla 2:47
Well, you know, from the start I really thought that this place was you know, in it back in two thousand thirteen I thought maybe three, four years Yeah, it will be good by twenty seven years. And uh I'll say it's taken a lot longer. But I think it's moving in a faster pace now than I had envisioned, you know, um back in two thousand thirteen. And I think a couple of things, number one, financial institutions are now leaning in, which is very different than it was in two thousand thirteen. I think secondly, like governments are now embracing and that's one thing I got wrong as like I didn't think that you needed all the regulation. back in two thirteen to make this happen. But now it's it's quite evident that that's gonna really be a catalyst and accelerant to blockchain adoption.
Jacquelyn Melinek 3:32
Yeah. I think even in the meantime too, that's why these uh digital asset treasuries or dats as we like to call them make sense because a lot of these firms are not gonna go and buy cryptocurrencies but they could buy through Ever North to get exposure to XRP, right? That's kind of like the high level thesis here.
Asheesh Birla 3:49
Yeah, that's right. So like hey, think about all the things that you and I have to do and and and you know, we were early adopters, but you have to, you know, go out there, you have to secure your Bitcoin and or or crypto or XRP.

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