Garlinghouse Rings Nasdaq Bell as Evernorth Puts 473M XRP to Work

Brad Garlinghouse rang the Nasdaq closing bell with Evernorth on Wednesday. The XRP treasury company used the moment to say what it plans to do with its coins: start putting them to work.

Evernorth's 473 million XRP will begin moving into institutional strategies in the fourth quarter of 2026, the company said. Ripple, Kraken, Coinbase and BitGo are the first institutional execution partners. Evernorth says it will both accumulate and deploy from the treasury. It describes itself as holding one of the largest XRP treasuries of any public company.

Garlinghouse on the CLARITY Act and XRP's Legal Position

Garlinghouse said he was disappointed the CLARITY Act failed to advance after the Senate blocked it in September. "I was bummed for sure. I personally invested a lot of energy in that."

He argued XRP's standing differs from the rest of the industry. That comes from the federal court ruling in Ripple's case with the SEC, where the judge's opinion said XRP is not a security. The SEC and Ripple dismissed their appeals in August 2025. The final judgment stayed in place, including a $125 million penalty and an injunction against future registration violations.

With the bill stalled, Garlinghouse said the SEC and CFTC "have already leaned into rulemaking to fill the void that the Clarity Act was intended to fill." He also left room for that to change with new leadership: "Could there be a future SEC chair who takes a different approach, or a CFTC chair takes a different approach? Maybe."

Schwartz Says Connectivity Is the Missing Piece

David Schwartz, Ripple's CTO emeritus, said real-world asset tokenisation is the part he is most excited about. He called it a key unlock for retail usage. He said the industry has to solve problems ordinary people actually have, and named two priorities: access to investments, and getting money into and out of crypto. "All of that connectivity ... that's what's largely missing in the space, and that's where the focus is going to be over the next year or so," he said.

What Evernorth Does With the 473 Million XRP

"We're putting our treasury to work," said Evernorth founder and CEO Asheesh Birla. The company is beginning with "some of the strongest institutional counterparties in the industry," he said. As the XRP Ledger's credit markets come online, "we intend to be there with capital on day one."

The plan runs in two stages. First, Ripple, Kraken, Coinbase and BitGo execute the treasury into institutional strategies from the fourth quarter of 2026. Then Evernorth phases in DeFi strategies on the XRP Ledger itself, allocating capital directly to on-chain markets. That stage waits on the ledger's native lending and on-chain credit capabilities, which must be activated by validators and proven in production.

The program is run by Hugo Jeandesboz. He became Evernorth's chief investment officer on September 28, 2026, after serving as co-chief investment officer at Coinbase Asset Management. Evernorth's shares began trading on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker XRPN on October 8, 2026. That day it completed its business combination with Armada Acquisition Corp. II.

The partnership agreements are subject to customary closing conditions and any regulatory and corporate approvals they require.

The $1,000 XRP Call, and the Catalyst It Does Not Name

Also doing the rounds: EasyA co-founder Dom Kwok revived his $1,000 XRP target on X. "$1,000 is more likely than ever," he posted. The post drew more than one million views as XRP holders debated whether adoption could ever justify a four-digit price.

At $1,000 a token, with about 63.13 billion XRP in circulation, that would imply a circulating market capitalisation of roughly $63.13 trillion.

Kwok did not say he holds undisclosed information. He did not name a catalyst behind the renewed forecast. XRP commentator CharuSan treated the call as informed anyway. Kwok would have "definitely obtained information that backs it up," CharuSan wrote, and he is "one of the rare people whose words I can trust."

The prediction resurfaced as a new Apple job listing for an Apple Pay strategist stirred speculation that crypto could reach Apple Pay. The role sits in Apple's consumer payments operation, working across Apple Card and Apple Cash. Candidates are expected to understand stablecoins, tokenised deposits and blockchain. The listing mentions neither XRP nor Ripple. It does not say Apple is developing a crypto product or preparing to let users spend digital assets through Apple Pay.

The next hard date is the fourth quarter of 2026, when Evernorth's deployment is due to begin, approvals permitting. Whether the second stage starts on schedule depends on something outside the company: the XRP Ledger's credit markets going live, and holding up in production.