Ripple veteran has viral Sydney Sweeney moment in New York Anand Sinha Fri, October 16, 2026 at 11:00 AM EDT 3 min read XRP-USD -1.83% ^IXIC -1.08% XRPN -1.96% Trade XRP on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
Sydney Sweeney always makes news, whatever she does, or does not do. And this time, it is all thanks to a selfie.
It came from an unlikely source: a crypto veteran in New York attending an event.
David Schwartz, Ripple Labs CTO Emeritus and one of the founding architects of XRP Ledger, was recently in the city to ring the Nasdaq closing bell as Evernorth Holdings (Nasdaq: XRPN) made its public debut.
Backed by Ripple, Evernorth is the largest publicly traded pure-play XRP treasury. The company decided to ring the Nasdaq closing bell on Oct. 14 to celebrate its public debut two days earler. And Schwartz decided to join the squad.
However, he couldn't resist posing in front of a Times Square billboard featuring Hollywood actor Sydney Sweeney in the viral "Just Sports" ad by the sports prediction market company Novig.
Schwartz even posted his selfie on X, saying, "Oops, wrong billboard." Ethereum and Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson quipped, "I knew she had XRP."
The Ripple veteran next posted another selfie in front of the Evernorth billboard.
At the time of writing this story, his Sydney Sweeney selfie had 225,000 views but the Evernorth selfie had only 143,000 views.
While the playful banter goes on, Evernorth's Nasdaq debut marks one of the most important XRP events this year.
Evernorth is an XRP treasury company founded in October 2025 by former Ripple board member Asheesh Birla.
After joining Ripple's founding team in 2013 to build its product suite, Birla rose to general manager at its cross-border payments network, RippleNet, and later sat on the company's board.
As he quit Ripple to found Evernorth last year, the association with the crypto company didn't end at all. The newly founded XRP treasury secured capital from Ripple, alongside Kraken, SBI Holdings, Pantera Capital, and Arrington Capital.
An XRP treasury holds the cryptocurrency on its balance sheet and sells its stock to offer indirect XRP exposure to investors. In short, an investor can buy Evernorth's XRPN shares to gain indirect exposure to XRP.
Such a trade is ideal for those investors who want to get a taste of cryptocurrencies without abandoning the comfort of traditional stock exchanges.
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As the company decided to go public, it didn't pursue the traditional IPO path. Instead, it merged with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Armada Acquisition Corp. II (Nasdaq: AACI) to make its Nasdaq debut.
A SPAC is a shell company that's already public and exists solely to take a real firm public through a merger. In short, it offers a quick path for companies to make their public debut.
After a year-long process, Evernorth made its Nasdaq debut on Oct. 12 with approximately 473 million XRP and around $300 million in gross cash proceeds before expenses.
The XRPN stock opened at $16.68 on its Nasdaq debut on Oct. 12 and closed at $16.07 on Oct. 15.
XRP has also seen a similarly modest decline during the same period. At the time of Evernorth's debut on Oct. 12, the cryptocurrency was trading at $1.38.
XRP was trading at $1.34 at the time of writing, as per Decibel.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency investments are highly volatile and risky. Always conduct your own research before making any investment decisions.
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This story was originally published by TheStreet on Oct 16, 2026, where it first appeared in the MARKETS section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
