Ripple’s Swell to Unite Finance Leaders and XRP Developers in New York

Ripple’s expanded Swell conference opens Oct. 27, 2026, at The Shed in Manhattan, bringing financial institutions, XRP Ledger developers and researchers together for three days of discussions. The program features more than 100 speakers and more than 80 sessions across three stages, according to the event’s official website.

Organizers expect more than 1,500 attendees at the conference, which runs through Oct. 29. Its audience extends from banking, fintech and capital-markets executives to engineers, academics, individual investors and members of the XRP community, giving the gathering a broader remit than an institutional-finance conference alone.

For the first time, Ripple is combining Swell with Apex and UBRI Connect. Apex serves developers, institutions and investors building on the XRP Ledger, while UBRI Connect brings together researchers and students associated with Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative. The consolidated format places those audiences within one conference program.

The agenda is organized around three tracks: Institutional, Ecosystem and Innovation. Together, they address the commercial, technical and research questions surrounding blockchain-based finance. That structure gives participants distinct areas of focus while connecting discussions about financial applications with the infrastructure and scholarship behind them.

The Institutional track focuses on financial-services adoption, including digital-asset markets and the requirements for putting blockchain systems into bank-grade production. Ripple’s published lineup also highlights artificial intelligence systems that move money and the first year of spot XRP exchange-traded funds. These sessions are framed around operating and investment questions rather than development alone.

The Ecosystem program turns to the XRP Ledger and the people building on it. David Schwartz and RippleX engineering executive Ayo Akinyele are scheduled to discuss the ledger’s future, including privacy, scalability and infrastructure for institutional use. Other sessions examine enterprise participation in network validation and support for developers across the ecosystem.

Academic research anchors the Innovation track, with subjects including cryptography, security, trust and the architecture of blockchain systems. The wider conference agenda also lists stablecoins, payments, tokenization, interoperability and quantum-related topics. Their inclusion puts immediate business applications alongside longer-term questions about how digital financial infrastructure should function.

Scheduled speakers include Bullish Chairman and Chief Executive Tom Farley and Water.org co-founders Matt Damon and Gary White. The Water.org founders are due to discuss financial approaches to expanding access to safe water and sanitation. Their appearance adds a financial-inclusion perspective to a program otherwise centered on markets, technology and infrastructure.

Ripple has described previous Swell conferences as venues for significant product and partnership announcements. Its lineup preview, however, does not identify a specific forthcoming launch or agreement. As the conference begins, the distinction will be between the ambitions outlined in the program and any concrete developments disclosed during the three-day gathering.