Evernorth's XRPN closed its Nasdaq debut at $16.91 as 80.3% of SPAC holders took cash and left

Evernorth Holdings began trading on Nasdaq as XRPN on Monday, October 12, four days later than first planned, after its merger with the SPAC Armada Acquisition Corp. II closed on October 9, Crypto.news reported. Bitcoin.com News put the first regular-session close at $16.91, down $0.18, or 1.05%, with the stock at $17.37 after hours. Yellow says it briefly traded near $19.40 before fading.

The number behind the listing

Per the SEC filing cited by Bitcoin.com, holders redeemed about 80.3% of the eligible Armada II shares, taking roughly $195.39 million in cash. Evernorth says it received about $300 million in gross cash proceeds. The company said it holds about 473 million XRP. A SPAC redemption is a holder choosing the trust cash over the new company, so most of the SPAC's own shareholders chose the cash. That alone does not say what the new shares are worth.

At Coinbase's Sunday morning price of $1.2794 per XRP, down 1.3% from its $1.2968 open, 473 million XRP is about $605 million. That is our arithmetic on the company's stated holding, not a reported net asset value; we did not find a share count in the sources we read, so we cannot say whether XRPN trades above or below the value of its tokens. Yellow argues the listing adds no direct new demand for XRP, since investors largely contributed existing tokens for equity.

What Ripple's people said

In an interview at the Nasdaq event, Ripple's David Schwartz, the XRP Ledger's architect, described the listing as a connection between crypto and traditional finance, pointing to uses like holding XRP in a retirement account or on a balance sheet. He argued the Ledger sits between Bitcoin and fully programmable chains, with built-in tools for tokenization, loans and stablecoins, and speculated that AI-agent payments may need a neutral settlement layer. Those are his views and forecasts, not facts we checked. Stuart Alderoty, Ripple's chief legal officer, also appeared at the event.

What to watch

For XRP holders the question is whether a listed vehicle accumulates more tokens or sits still, and whether its shares track its holdings. Neither can be known from one session. Compare this with the Bitcoin treasury names under pressure, covered in our Strategy report. Prices live at crypto prices.

Sources: Bitcoin.com News; Yellow; Crypto.news; Coinbase Exchange API; Thinking Crypto interview with David Schwartz. Information, not investment advice.