Key days for Ripple: biggest XRP conference ever starts today

The American crypto company Ripple is organizing its annual Swell conference in New York from today. For three days, major banks, asset managers and crypto companies come together to talk about the future of the financial system. With BlackRock and the IMF among others on the guest list, XRP investors are especially looking forward to possible new announcements.

The conference will take place from 27 to 29 October and is expected to attract more than 1,500 visitors. Among the more than 100 speakers are representatives of BlackRock, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and various major banks.

Especially the participation of BlackRock and the IMF attracts attention. Max Stein, director of digital investments at BlackRock, joins a conversation today about how major asset managers are incorporating crypto and other digital financial products into their investment strategies.

Tobias Adrian, a top IMF official, also appears on stage. Among other things, he talks about the growing role of stablecoins.

Both discussions take place during a private part of the conference that is mainly intended for representatives of large financial institutions.

An important topic during the conference is RLUSD, Ripple's stablecoin. The company wants to make international payments faster and cheaper and stimulate the use of blockchain technology within the financial sector.

Yesterday, Ripple also received final approval from the US regulator OCC to set up its own trust bank. This allows the company to, among other things, manage the reserves behind RLUSD under federal supervision and to store crypto coins for business customers.

The approval could help Ripple to further expand its services to banks and other financial institutions. However, it does not mean that the company may automatically offer all the services of a traditional bank.

For XRP, the advantage of the banking license is less direct. The approval does not automatically increase demand for the crypto coin, but can contribute to a broader use of Ripple's technology in the longer term.

Another important topic during Swell is the further development of the XRP Ledger. David Schwartz, one of the network's original developers, discusses what improvements are coming. These include privacy, scalability and applications for large financial institutions.

In addition, there is talk of tokenisation. Traditional financial products such as stocks and bonds are converted into digital tokens on a blockchain.

Ripple wants the XRP Ledger to play a larger role in this market. More use of the network can strengthen its position, although this does not automatically mean that demand for XRP is increasing.

The American XRP exchange funds are also receiving attention. The conference will discuss how the first year of these investment products went and what role large financial institutions play in this.

For XRP owners, possible new collaborations and technological developments are particularly interesting. Whether the conference will actually deliver concrete announcements must be revealed in the coming days.

Ripple has been organizing Swell since 2017. Important developments were regularly announced during previous editions.

For example, in 2018, Ripple launched xRapid, a payment service that used XRP to make international transfers faster and cheaper. The technology later became part of Ripple's broader payment services.

In 2024, the company presented its plans for stablecoin RLUSD. Last year, Ripple reported more than $95 billion in processed payment volume. It also announced a partnership with Mastercard, WebBank and Gemini.

This year, Swell is celebrating its tenth anniversary. For the first time, the event will be combined with XRPL Apex, a conference for developers of the XRP Ledger.