Evernorth named former Coinbase Asset Management co-CIO Hugo Jeandesboz to run its 473 million XRP treasury on debut day, and XRPN still closed at $16.91, 68% below its $53 high.
Key Takeaways
- Hugo Jeandesboz joins Evernorth as CIO to put its 473M XRP to work through lending and liquidity strategies.
- XRPN touched $19.39 on Oct. 12 before closing at $16.91, about 68% below its Oct. 2 peak of $53.
- XRP slid to $1.35 on debut day, and Evernorth’s Nasdaq bell ceremony is set for Oct. 14.
The Hire Nobody Was Pricing in
Evernorth used its first day as a Nasdaq-listed company to name Hugo Jeandesboz as its chief investment officer (CIO). He was most recently co-CIO of Coinbase Asset Management and, before that, Coinbase’s lead derivatives trader covering options, futures and onchain markets. Earlier in his career, he traded interest rate derivatives at HSBC in New York and fixed income at Société Générale.
His duties cover treasury allocation, liquidity management and “the active management of Evernorth’s XRP holdings,” according to the company’s announcement. He will report to founder and CEO Asheesh Birla, a former senior Ripple executive.
Birla said the growth of tokenized real-world assets and “recent XRP Ledger upgrades that are bringing lending and DeFi to XRP” create opportunities, using the shorthand for decentralized finance, and that “capturing them takes someone who has priced risk on institutional desks in both traditional and digital asset markets.” Jeandesboz said the XRP Ledger “is becoming infrastructure where institutional capital can operate.”
So Why Did XRPN Keep Sliding?
The hire tells investors Evernorth won’t be a passive XRP vault, but the stock’s first session suggests the market cares more about what happened before the opening bell.
XRPN, trading under the former Armada Acquisition Corp. II shell, had peaked at $53 on Oct. 2 after a speculative run from around $10.68. By the time Evernorth officially started trading on Oct. 12, most of that froth was gone. Shares reached $19.39 intraday before fading, and the regular session closed at $16.91, down 1.05%, before ticking up to $17.37 after hours. That close sits about 68% below the $53 peak.
Three things weighed on the debut:
- Redemptions: About 80.3% of eligible Armada shares were redeemed for roughly $195.39 million in cash, according to the company’s Form 8-K filing, which leaves a thin public float.
- Dilution jitters: A correction to the share issuance figure, from 663,510 to 1,078,614 Class A shares, spooked some holders, feeding a sell-the-news trade.
- The token itself: XRP fell to $1.35 on debut day as total crypto market capitalization dropped 3.4% to roughly $2.80 trillion.
The Number Underneath the Treasury
Evernorth closed its merger with approximately 473 million XRP and about $300 million in gross cash. Most of that XRP was contributed by Ripple, the sponsor and a related party, but about 84.37 million XRP was bought for $214 million, an average of roughly $2.54 per token.
With XRP trading near $1.37 today, that purchased tranche is worth about $115.6 million, roughly 46% below cost. It isn’t the only XRP position underwater and Bitcoin.com News reported recently that XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) buyers are sitting on a $230 million paper loss.
Lastly, the same day as the debut, Standard Chartered added custody for Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin on the XRP Ledger. Meanwhile, bitcoin’s price slipped under $82,000 as $406M in longs were liquidated, which pulled the whole market down with it.
Looking ahead, Evernorth’s pitch seems to lie in growing XRP per share through lending, liquidity provision and other yield strategies rather than waiting for XRP’s price to do the heavy lifting.