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Evernorth's XRP treasury SPAC and Morgan Stanley's in-house bitcoin ETF filing show how corporate balance sheets and wirehouse distribution are moving deeper into digital assets just as U.S. regulators finalize a commodity taxonomy and greenlight tokenized securities venues. Spot bitcoin ETF flows flickered negative midweek, giving equity investors a first test of how durable the latest inflow streak really is. Stay up on the crypto news that matters with "Crypto Currents," daily from The Fly. Join us at 2 PM ET for your essential briefing on the fast-moving world of cryptocurrency on FlyCast radio.EVERNORTH FILES FOR FIRST PUBLIC XRP TREASURY COMPANY:Evernorth, the Ripple-backed XRPtreasury firm, filed awith the SEC, advancing its plan to become the first publicly traded XRP treasury company on a major U.S. exchange. For equity investors who watched Strategytransform from a legacy software company into a leveraged bitcoin holding vehicle, the architecture here is immediately recognizable, and intentionally so. The deal's mechanics are straightforward: Evernorth will merge with Armada Acquisition Corp. II, a SPAC already trading on a U.S. exchange, with the combined entity targeting a Nasdaq listing under the proposed ticker 'XRPN'. The transaction is projected to generate over $1B in gross proceeds, backed by a consortium that reads like a who's-who of crypto institutional capital: Ripple, SBI, Pantera Capital, Kraken, and GSR. Overwhelmingly, those proceeds are earmarked for one purpose, buying more XRP.The company is not starting from zero., accumulated across two purchase windows between October 20 and November 4, 2025, at an average entry price of $2.54 per token. With XRP trading around $1.47 at time of publication, that existing position is roughly 42% underwater, a material fact that belongs prominently in any investor's due-diligence file. The S-4 estimates the merged entity will hold at least that volume at launch, meaning XRPN shareholders will immediately inherit an unrealized loss in the treasury position. That underwater entry point is the single most important risk factor equity investors should stress-test before this stock ever trades. Strategy's model worked in part because bitcoin's long-term appreciation absorbed periods of drawdown; XRP's price history is far more idiosyncratic, driven heavily by litigation outcomes, Ripple's own token releases, and retail sentiment cycles. The SEC's March 17 guidance explicitly classifying XRP as a digital commodity, alongside bitcoin, ether, dogecoin, avalanche, and aptos, removes the securities-law overhang that suppressed XRP's institutional adoption for years. But regulatory clarity is not the same as price recovery.have framed this as "Is Evernorth the Strategy of XRP?" and the. Use public equity and debt markets to systematically accumulate a digital asset on the balance sheet, offering institutional investors indirect crypto exposure through a familiar equity wrapper. What that framing obscures is that Strategy's model succeeded over a multi-year accumulation campaign, not a single pre-IPO buy window executed at a price 42% above current market. SEC approval of the S-4 is the remaining regulatory gate; Armada II shareholder approval is also required before the deal formally closes. Neither is guaranteed, and the SEC's current queue ofmeans the timeline is uncertain. Equity investors who want XRP exposure today have a liquid alternative in the spot XRP market itself; the premium (or discount) at which XRPN trades relative to its net asset value will be the critical valuation metric once it lists.MORGAN STANLEY SHARPENS ITS IN-HOUSE BITCOIN ETF:Morgan Stanleysubmitted aon March 18. The fund would trade under the ticker 'MSBT' on NYSE Arca. This is the operational-detail amendment that matters: Coinbase Custody will safeguard bitcoin holdings in cold storage. Bank of New York Mellonwill handle cash custody and administrative operations. Daily NAV will be calculated using the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark at 4:00 PM ET, consistent with how the existing approved Bitcoin ETFs mark their books. Analysts project expense ratios in the 0.20%–0.30% range, competitive with the current field, where fee compression has already been aggressive. The fund accommodates both cash-based and in-kind creation/redemption for authorized participants, the latter being structurally more tax-efficient for institutional holders and a signal that Morgan Stanley intends to compete seriously at the institutional end of the market. The distribution angle is where this filing separates itself from earlier entrants. Morgan Stanley employs more than 15,000 financial advisors and oversees approximately $1.8T in wealth management assets. Reports indicate advisors were authorized to recommend bitcoin ETFs to qualified clients beginning in early 2026. An in-house Morgan Stanley ETF unlocks a distribution channel that third-party issuers can only partially access — advisors naturally default to house products where compliance friction is lower and relationship economics align. For equity investors in the existing bitcoin ETF ecosystem, BlackRock'sIBIT, Fidelity's FBTC, and others, MSBT represents a marginal competitive threat on flows, though the market-expansion effect of a major wirehouses' direct entry likely more than offsets share dilution. The broader ETF context bears noting: the SEC is currently examining more than 126 cryptocurrency ETF proposals simultaneously, and as we reported yesterday, the joint SEC-CFTC taxonomy framework has materially shortened the legal path to approval for funds holding assets newly classified as digital commodities.PRICE ACTION:As of time of writing, bitcoin was trading at $69,051.26, while ether was trading at $2,110.48,.

Scilex Holding Company (SCLX) has filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against Marc Wade, The St. James Bank & Trust Company, Omega & Corinth Group, and related parties, alleging a scheme involving the unauthorized transfer and sale of approximately 96M Datavault AI (DVLT) common shares that were pledged as collateral in a stock loan transaction. The lawsuit also names The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BK) for its alleged role in opening and administering brokerage accounts through which the Pledged DVLT Shares were allegedly improperly transferred and traded. Scilex is seeking recovery of the Pledged DVLT Shares, compensatory damages exceeding $100M, punitive damages, disgorgement of profits, and other relief.

Bitcoinis holding above $72,000 on Thursday morning after briefly topping $73,000 in the prior session, as a pair of blockbuster deals signal that traditional finance is accelerating its push into digital-asset infrastructure. Spot bitcoin ETF inflows hit $462M on Wednesday, the third consecutive day of net buying led by BlackRock'sIBIT at $307M, while etherfunds drew $169M,.NYSE PARENT ICE TAKES BOARD SEAT AT OKX IN $25B TOKENIZATION BET:Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, has taken an equity stake in crypto exchange OKX at a $25B valuation and secured a board seat,. Under the deal, OKX will supply ICE with a live crypto price feed and plans to allow users to trade tokenized NYSE-listed stocks and derivatives in the second half of 2026, while ICE continues to develop its own blockchain-based trading infrastructure. For equity investors, the transaction links a systemically important exchange operator directly to a major offshore crypto venue and advances the tokenization-of-equities narrative that has driven ICE shares and peer exchange stocks higher in recent quarters.CORE SCIENTIFIC SECURES UP TO $1B FROM MORGAN STANLEY AS MINERS LOCK IN CAPITAL:Core Scientificannounced it has secured up to $1B in strategic financing from Morgan Stanley, with a $500M initial close. The financing comes as the bitcoin miner pivots its data-center capacity toward high-performance computing and AI hosting, a theme that has driven a combined $11B surge in U.S.-listed miner market caps in recent months. Separately, BitFuFureportedthat it mined 227 BTC in February and held 1,830 BTC with 26.4 EH/s of deployed hashrate, while LM Funding Americasaid it mined a record 8.7 BTC in February, up 11.5% from January, but sold 18.1 BTC and reduced total holdings to 354.7 BTC,.CLARITY ACT STALLS AS TRUMP ATTACKS BANKS OVER STABLECOIN YIELD BAN:The CLARITY Act stablecoin bill hit a fresh impasse after White House-led negotiations ended without agreement on whether platforms like Coinbaseshould be permitted to offer yield on stablecoins,. President Trump publicly criticized banks for undermining his crypto agenda, telling supporters that financial institutions are "threatening" the industry by pushing for a total prohibition on stablecoin rewards,. Despite the legislative stalemate, the broader regulatory tone continued to shift, with the SEC and CFTC each submitting formal crypto-market-structure guidance to the White House for review,.BITCOIN TREASURY STRATEGIES PROLIFERATE ACROSS SMALL-CAP EQUITIES:The corporate bitcoin treasury trend extended further down-market. YY Group Holdingsannounced a long-term bitcoin treasury strategy, allocating excess cash to BTC as a reserve asset, citing scarcity and inflation-hedge potential,. DDC Enterprisegrew its BTC stash to 2,183 coins amid record revenue guidance, while Hyperscale Data, anchored by a bitcoin treasury strategy, said its askROI subsidiary deployed Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 AI model,., American Bitcoin Corp., the Hut 8subsidiary with Trump-family ties, disclosed two insider Form 4s showing directors purchased 2.1M shares, while Aurelion Inc.reported Q1 results for the first Nasdaq-listed Tether Gold treasury with a $108M NAV,.ON-CHAIN FLOWS SHOW BLACKROCK ACCUMULATION AND SHORT-WHALE LIQUIDATIONS:showed BlackRock withdrew a net 4,716 BTC, valued around $345M, and 21,147 ETH, valued near $45M, from Coinbase within a 13-hour window ending early March 5, a pattern consistent with IBIT custody accumulation rather than selling. Separately,an OG bitcoin wallet depositing 500 BTC worth approximately $36.4M to Binance after 8 months of dormancy., a potential sell-side signal, while CryptoQuant's Exchange Whale Ratio surged to 0.85 in late February, the highest in over a decade, before pulling back as of March 5,.GOLDMAN SACHS FILES BITCOIN-LINKED STRUCTURED NOTES; BNY MELLON HIGHLIGHTS TOKENIZATION:Goldman Sachsfiled a 424B2 prospectus for autocallable contingent coupon notes linked to the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, with risk factors explicitly discussing bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and digital assets,. Bank of New York Mellonused its definitive proxy statement to highlight the launch of a tokenized money market fund solution and a stablecoin reserves fund among its 2025 accomplishments,. Both filings underscore that Wall Street's largest institutions are deepening their crypto infrastructure buildout even as bitcoin trades more than 40% below its October 2025 all-time high.PRICE ACTION:As of time of writing, bitcoin was trading at $70,997.06, while ether was trading at $2,063.71,.