Ripple co-founder and CTO Emeritus David Schwartz will return to the Swell 2026 stage for a fireside chat on October 28 at 4:30 p.m. ET in New York, focusing on the next phase of the XRP Ledger. He will appear alongside Ayo Akinyele, RippleX's Senior Director of Engineering, for a session titled Building What's Next for XRPL. The discussion is expected to cover privacy, scalability, artificial intelligence integration and institutional-grade infrastructure.
Ripple has combined its Swell conference with the Apex developer summit and UBRI Connect academic program at The Shed on October 27-28, drawing roughly 1,500 attendees. Confirmed speakers include Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, former NYSE President Tom Farley and BNY executive Laide Majiyagbe. Actor Matt Damon is also set to participate through Water.org, which plans to explore RLUSD applications for microfinance initiatives in Asia and Africa.
The conversation comes during one of XRPL's busiest upgrade periods of 2026. Recent protocol changes include BatchV1_1, which can combine up to eight transactions into a single batch, and PermissionDelegationV1_1, allowing accounts to grant limited authority without sharing master keys. More significantly, XRPL version 3.3.0 introduced the ConfidentialTransfer amendment, designed to hide Multi-Purpose Token balances and transfer amounts using zero-knowledge proofs and EC-ElGamal encryption while preserving regulatory auditability. Ripple has framed selective confidentiality as essential before banks can move sensitive financial activity onchain.
Artificial intelligence is another concrete part of the roadmap. Ripple launched the XRPL AI Starter Kit in June, enabling X402-powered payments with XRP and RLUSD so autonomous agents can pay for APIs, computing resources and digital services without human approval. At the same time, Ripple's roadmap combines Permissioned Domains, credentials, lending and confidential transfers to support regulated onchain markets, moving XRPL beyond its original payments focus toward institutional DeFi.
The XRP market backdrop adds weight to the event: XRP has posted a reported 46% third-quarter gain, trading around $1.53 with a market capitalization near $97 billion. Schwartz's appearance also marks his first major conference engagement since becoming CTO Emeritus and joining Ripple's board, signaling an evolving leadership structure around the XRPL's technical direction.
