Ripple is folding its developer summit XRPL Apex into Swell this year, making the October event the biggest in the conference’s history. Swell 2026 runs October 27–29 at The Shed in Hudson Yards, New York City, and will host more than 1,500 attendees across three simultaneous stages. The move consolidates Ripple’s two flagship gatherings into a single, four-day program — a shift the company says reflects the growing overlap between institutional finance and XRPL development.
XRPL Apex folds into Swell
For the first time, Swell will absorb the developer-focused XRPL Apex rather than run it as a separate event. The combined conference features 75-plus speakers and 50-plus sessions split into three tracks: Institution (banking and fintech integration), Ecosystem (XRPL developer tooling and infrastructure), and Innovation (emerging applications including AI and quantum-resistant security). David Schwartz, Ripple’s CTO Emeritus, posted on X on June 17 framing the event around utility — payments, tokenization, DeFi, interoperability, and AI.
Garlinghouse, Long anchor institutional track
CEO Brad Garlinghouse and President Monica Long will lead the institutional track, joined by external heavyweights: Tom Farley, CEO of crypto exchange Bullish; Billy Hult, CEO of Tradeweb; and actor Matt Damon, co-founder of Water.org. Damon’s appearance marks a rare crossover from the celebrity-backed “Fortune Favors the Bold” Crypto.com campaign into a conference centered on bank-grade infrastructure. The institutional track is expected to drill into real-world asset tokenization, stablecoins, and crypto ETFs — a continuation of the deep institutional presence that made Swell 2025 one of Ripple’s most consequential conferences.
What’s on the agenda
Session topics span global regulatory frameworks, institutional custody, capital markets, DeFi, financial inclusion, and treasury cash management. Ripple’s call for speakers specifically asks for case studies that show measurable outcomes — reduced settlement times, lower FX costs, or new tokenization business lines. The focus on hard metrics suggests Ripple is betting that banks and fintechs will come ready to present real numbers, not just pilot projects.
Registration still open
Early bird pricing ended May 23, but general registration remains open as of early May. The event’s new format — three tracks under one roof — means attendees can bounce between developer workshops and CEO keynotes without choosing a separate ticket. Whether the expanded scope draws a crowd that leans more toward coders or compliance officers will become clearer when the full speaker list drops closer to October.
