Ripple Integrates Two Events in New York October 27-29 Amid ETF Discussions

Ripple will hold Swell 2026 at The Shed in New York City from October 27 to 29, integrating its annual event with the XRP Ledger developer conference Apex. The official event page states that this year's gathering will feature three stages, over 80 sessions, and more than 100 speakers.

Key topics include the intersection of traditional finance and on-chain finance, with notable speakers such as Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, BLSH Chairman and CEO Tom Farley, and Water.org co-founder Matt Damon. Attendees will include banking and fintech firms, capital market participants, XRP Ledger developers, and researchers.

Agenda items cover capital markets and payments, real-world asset tokenization, stablecoins, ETFs, DeFi, policy and regulation, security and compliance, quantum computing, and XRP use cases. Real-world asset tokenization involves representing ownership rights of assets like real estate or bonds as blockchain-based digital tokens. The event will also discuss integrating tokenized assets into payment infrastructure.

Stablecoins, designed to maintain value pegged to fiat currency or specific assets, will be discussed in the context of institutional finance within capital markets and payments. 'Agentive finance,' where AI agents participate in financial transactions and settlements, will be a separate topic. XRP Ledger is the blockchain network supporting XRP-based payments and digital asset issuance.

Ripple has merged its institution-focused Swell with Apex, a developer-centric event, to enable discussions on payment infrastructure, asset tokenization, stablecoins, and ETFs from both institutional and developer perspectives. The combined event aims to address XRP Ledger technology discussions alongside institutional finance use cases in the same schedule.

While the agenda has been released, specific session details or speaker quotes remain undisclosed until the event begins on October 27. No new partnerships or product plans have been confirmed for announcement at the event. The impact of the event on XRP price or ETF inflows cannot be determined before the event starts.

Ripple has scheduled a XRP Ledger hackathon immediately preceding Swell 2026, aligning developer-focused activities with institutional finance events. Policy and regulation alongside security and compliance are also included in the agenda, creating a structure that addresses both financial product and payment infrastructure topics as well as technical and regulatory issues.

The official speaker list and session lineup may change before the event begins on October 27, with specific discussions to be revealed after the event commences.