From CryptoPotato · By Jordan Lyanchev
After months of preparation and anticipation, the merger between Evernorth and Armada Acquisition Corp. II was finally finalized in October, and their brainchild’s stock went live for trading on Nasdaq.
What was supposed to be a major milestone for XRP’s expansion into traditional finance, though, has turned into a massacre, with XRPN falling from an intraday high of over $52 on its debut day to single digits.
83% Down
XRPN closed at the end of the previous business week at under $9, having touched a new local low of $8.35 during the Thursday session, which was quite brutal for the crypto market and volatile for Wall Street. Its high came at almost $53, reached on its debut shortly after launching. This means that the stock has lost approximately 83% of its value from the post-listing peak.
This rather violent price decline is striking given the excitement surrounding Evernorth’s October 12 Nasdaq launch. The company entered public markets holding approximately 473 million XRP and around $300 million in gross cash proceeds, while describing itself as an actively managed XRP treasury rather than a vehicle that would simply hold the token.
In the months leading up to the debut, Ripple, SBI Group, Kraken, Pantera Capital, and other major names participated in the broader transaction. Later on, Evernorth selected Ripple, Coinbase, Kraken, and BitGo as execution partners for plans to deploy the XRP treasury into institutional strategies, with CEO Asheesh Birla saying the objective was to increase “XRP per share” over time.
Yet, the company’s stock has fallen far harder than the underlying cryptocurrency behind its corporate strategy. XRP traded around $1.40 when Evernorth debuted and is now just inches above $1.00.
According to some X users, such as daolang 589, this means investors haven’t abandoned XRP itself, but rather the company designed to provide public-market exposure to the cross-border token.
More Trouble Mounting?
Evernorth registered up to 73.69 million Class A shares for potential resale recently by existing securityholders, including those associated with Ripple, Arrington XRP Capital, SBI affiliates, and others. The filing does not mean that those holders have already sold the shares, as only around 19.1 million of the registered amount currently consists of issued Class A stock. At the same time, many other securities require conversions or exchanges, and some remain subject to lockups.
Nevertheless, XRPN still plunged by over 23% on November 10 alone, closing at $7.96 immediately after the final resale prospectus became effective. The company also issued $30 million of 4% convertible senior notes to NH Investment & Securities with an initial conversion price of approximately $10.20 per share. With XRPN currently below that level, the conversion price has become another notable reference point for the battered stock.