Ripple, in partnership with the University of California, Berkeley, has officially unveiled the University Digital Asset Xcelerator (UDAX), an accelerator program designed to transform early-stage blockchain concepts into deployable products on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). The program's first cohort of nine startups graduated in January 2026 after a six-week intensive pilot hosted at UC Berkeley.
The inaugural UDAX program was a collaboration between Ripple engineers and a multidisciplinary group of Berkeley faculty. It culminated in a closing summit and demo day at Ripple's San Francisco headquarters, featuring Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen and CTO Emeritus David Schwartz. The event connected the startups with XRP Ledger developers, Ripple executives, and representatives from 13 venture capital firms.
Participating startups reported significant growth. Ripple stated that teams achieved an average 67% increase in product maturity and a 92% average increase in fundraising confidence. Notable projects included WaveTip, a platform for instant tips to Twitch streamers that migrated to the XRPL Mainnet, and X-Card, which converted over $1.5 million in physical collectibles into digital assets. BlockBima, focused on climate-risk microinsurance, tripled its active user base.
The accelerator also supported projects in institutional finance. CRX Digital Assets used the program to expand its tokenized asset volume from $39 million to $58 million. Another startup, Blockroll, launched stablecoin-backed virtual cards for African freelancers, with CEO Sadiq Isiaka highlighting plans to use Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin to streamline remittance settlements from Sub-Saharan Africa and enable global financial access.
This initiative builds upon the existing partnership between Ripple and UC Berkeley, which last October saw the launch of a new Center for Digital Assets, funded in part by a $1.3 million contribution in Ripple USD (RLUSD) from Ripple's University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI).
