Ripple-tied treasury firm to raise over US$1 billion to go public

The companies have funded tens of billions of US dollars purchases of their target tokens and enjoyed hefty premiums when investors were bullish on the market

[NEW YORK] A company whose primary purpose is to hold the cryptocurrency tied to the Ripple payment network, XRP, is set to go public via a blank-check company.

Called Evernorth, the new venture joins an explosion of digital asset treasury companies, or DATs, raising funds through a special purpose acquisition company or Spac. The publicly listed entities draw investors that want to gain exposure to tokens without directly holding them.

The deal is expected to raised more than US$1 billion in proceeds, according to a statement on Monday (Oct 20). The Japanese financial services conglomerate SBI Holdings is contributing US$200 million while Ripple Labs is making an unspecified investment. Ripple led the fundraising effort, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

The deal is the latest amid a boom in crypto treasury companies with hundreds of entities following in the footsteps of Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin with about US$70 billion in the token.

The companies have funded tens of billions of US dollars purchases of their target tokens and enjoyed hefty premiums when investors were bullish on the market. However, those premiums have come down and share prices slumped amid the plunge in digital assets earlier in October with around US$19 billion in liquidations of bets on crypto.

Evernorth plans to merge with Armada Acquisition Corp II and the resulting firm is expected to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker “XRPN”. Other investors include Pantera Capital, Kraken and GSR. The combined company is still subject to the satisfaction of listing requirements before being traded on the exchange, according on Monday’s statement.