- Armada Acquisition Corp. II, the shell company taking XRP treasury firm Evernorth public, closed at $39.42 on Friday, up 68% that day and about 273% for the week, after briefly touching $53 against $10.58 a week earlier. The shares gained a further 9.5% in Monday pre-market trading. The merger is expected to close Wednesday October 7, with the combined company trading from Thursday October 8.
- The move follows heavy redemptions. Armada trust held $241.2 million at the end of June with a redemption value of about $10.49 per public share, and Evernorth has indicated roughly $48 million of trust proceeds will remain, implying around 80% of the trust money is being returned to shareholders according to CoinDesk calculations. Redemptions leave fewer public shares available, so relatively small orders can move the price sharply.
- Evernorth expects to hold approximately 473 million XRP at closing, worth about $714 million at Monday price of roughly $1.51. Its financing includes around $300 million of gross cash proceeds, comprising $225 million from private placements, $30 million in convertible notes and $48 million from the trust, with backers also contributing XRP directly.
- Part of the position is already underwater. The company spent $214.1 million acquiring 84.4 million XRP through the end of 2025 at an average of about $2.54, a tranche now worth roughly $127 million, a decline of around 41%.
What Happened?
A special purpose acquisition company raises money, holds it in trust and later merges with a private business, with public shareholders able to request their money back before the deal closes rather than remain in the combined company. The final count of redeemed shares has not been disclosed and will appear in closing filings alongside the remaining cash.
Why It Matters?
The share price is a redemption artefact rather than a valuation, and the article says so directly. With roughly 80% of the trust withdrawn, the remaining public float is small enough that modest orders move the price substantially, which is how a shell trades at nearly four times the cash backing each share. Anyone treating a 273% weekly gain as evidence of demand for XRP exposure is misreading a mechanical feature of SPAC structures. The arithmetic for a buyer at current levels is unfavourable before anything happens to XRP. The shares changed hands at $39.42 against a $10.49 redemption value, so the entry price is roughly 3.8 times what trust and private placement investors effectively paid. On top of that, the treasury itself carries an embedded loss, with the 84.4 million XRP acquired at an average $2.54 now worth about 41% less. Buying the shell means paying a large premium to cash for a position already down on part of its cost. The precedents are specific and discouraging. Twenty One fell 25% in early trading on its NYSE debut in December, converging toward the $10 its private placement investors paid, and ProCap BTC had lost more than 60% since its own merger by that point. Post-merger crypto treasury listings have tended to gravitate back toward the private placement price, which is around a quarter of where these shares currently trade. That pattern is consistent with the broader picture, where digital asset treasury companies have been trading below the value of the crypto they hold and shareholders have turned to activism over dilution and pay.
What Next?
Closing disclosures due around the October 7 merger will show the final share count and remaining cash, which determines how thin the float actually is. Trading from October 8 is the real test, and the question is whether the price converges toward asset backing as it has for comparable listings. Watch the relationship between market capitalisation and the roughly $714 million of XRP plus $300 million of cash, since a persistent premium would be unusual given sector history. XRP itself is the underlying variable, and with part of the treasury acquired at $2.54 the position needs a substantial recovery simply to break even on that tranche. Any lock-up terms on the private placement shares are also worth identifying, given what happened to comparable deals once those shares became tradeable.
Affected Tickers and Coins: XRP, MSTR, ASST
Source: CoinDesk
