A light-hearted mix-up in Times Square has given the XRP community something to talk about. Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz posted a selfie in front of actress Sydney Sweeney’s billboard for sports prediction platform Novig, and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson could not resist a joke.
“Oops, wrong billboard”
Schwartz shared the photo on X with the caption, “Oops, wrong billboard.” The ad behind him promoted Novig, a sports prediction marketplace, and featured Sweeney.
Hoskinson replied within the hour: “I knew she had XRP.” The joke played on the idea that the XRP Ledger’s co-creator had accidentally promoted a sports betting app instead of an XRP milestone.
“Got it this time”
Schwartz followed up with a second selfie, this time in front of the right screens. The billboards showed Evernorth’s branding and its Nasdaq ticker, XRPN.
“Got it this time,” he wrote.
Evernorth, the XRP treasury company led by former Ripple board member Asheesh Birla, holds about 473 million XRP and raised roughly $300 million in gross proceeds. Its shares began trading on Nasdaq this month, and the company rang the Nasdaq closing bell on October 14.
Ripple marked the moment on X, calling Evernorth “a new milestone for the XRP ecosystem” that puts “XRP to work via institutional strategies.”
XRP fans see a price signal
Some XRP holders read more into the post. One X user claimed that the last time Schwartz posted about Sweeney, XRP jumped about 80%, from $0.98 to $1.78, before pulling back. T
Sweeney’s past brushes with crypto
This is not the first time Sweeney’s name has surfaced in crypto. In 2024, a hack of her X account was used to promote a fake Solana token. Reports in 2025 also claimed Ripple had hired her to promote XRP, but no official announcement ever followed.
There is no indication that Sweeney owns XRP, and Hoskinson’s remark was clearly a joke.