What Is Ripple Swell?

Ripple Swell is the annual conference held by the American technology company Ripple. It is a private event for Ripple customers, prospects, and partners only. In October 2019, the conference was held in the city-state island of Singapore. Due to the pandemic, Ripple Swell was held virtually in various locations in 2020, 2021, and 202🔯2.

Originally named NewCoin, Ripple was formed in 2012. Its chief product is the Ripple Payments protocol, and it contributes to the XRP Ledger and XRP, which it uses in its products and services.

Understanding Ripple Swell

As a somewhat unusual entity (a corporation that created an open-source blockchain and cryptocurrency), Ripple decided to lean into its unique profile by hosting a yearly conference. This broad, interactive conference brought together many of the top figures in the digital currency and blockchain worlds. Ripple said customers h▨ad asked that the company bring together blockchain and banking leaders for information on the future of blockchain and the financial industry. Thus, it began hosting a conference it called Swell, a clever play on words regarding its Ripple brand. Ripples are small movements in water that dissipate quickly, while a swell is stored energy in water that can travel thousands of miles. Ripple considers itself to be a small movement that is generating a swell of cryptocurrency and blockchain adoption.

The Rippl൩e team first announced the conference in August 2017, anꩵd the first events took place the following October.

Select Conference Summaries

Ripple Swell 2017

The first iteration of Swell was called "Swell: The Future is Here." It was held in Toronto from October 16–18 in 2017. The first Swell conference centered on discussions of ways that blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies could work toward transforming the way that traditional financial systems are built.

Featured keynote speakers included 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Dr. Ben Bernanke, former chair of the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Federal Reserve, and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, early internet guru and inventor of the World Wide Web. Don Tapscott, the co-author of the book "Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World," was also featured as a speaker.

The Ripple agenda for the Swell summit in 2017 included a diverse array of events, including a session geared toward RippleNet (now Ripple Payments) customers, of𝔍fering users of the global payment system the chance to discuss how they have integrated Ripple into their own global payment practices. Other sessions focused on regulation in the cryptocurrency space o♕r on trends in the digital asset world.

In 2017, Swell also featured several representatives from "first-mover banks," each of whom discussed their own specific use cases involving XRP Ledger and related technology. These speakers commented on the opportunities that new payment processing companies may be able to discover in the traditional banking model, as well as potential problems and barriers they may encounter in the process as well.

Ripple Swell 2019

The 2019 Ripple Swell was held in Singapore at the end of 2019. The keynote speakers included Kamal Quadir, CEO of bKash, Chan Heng Chee (Ambassador-at-Large for the Singapore Foreign Ministry), and Raghuram Rajan, the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago University's Booth School of Business.

The price of XRP swooned on opening day, and pundits speculated this might be due to a lack of big announcements coming from the company. But CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the drop in price XRP's price was immaterial to the success of Ripple. He went on to make the apocalyptic claim that there is a mass extinction event looming across crypto markets, with only 1% of current coins surviving. Naturally, XRP is in the 1%. "I don't think about the price of XRP in the short term," he said.

Ripple also delivered a litany of good news at Swell 2019: Ripple surpassed 300 customers consisting of a global network of banks, financial institutions, and payment providers; Ripple's On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product announced in 2018 had several new customers, including goLance, Viamericas, FlashFX, and Interbank Peru; moreover, the number of transactions using ODL from the end of Q1 to the end of October grew 7X.

Ripple Swell 2023

Ripple Swell 2023 was held in Dubai, where several notable figures appeared to give their perspectives on cryptocurrency, blockchain, and how it is transforming services globally. Alya Al Zarouni, Chief Operation Officer at the Dubai International Finance Centre, discussed the center's role in adopting XRP as an official payment method in the financial-free zone it oversees.

Dare Okoudjou, founder and CEO of Pan-African fintech company Onafriq, spoke about the difficulties faced by African countries' populations, who have very limited access to financial networks. Onafriq connects to more than 120 million wallets throughout Africa, allowing it to provide payment services for residents in any country—giving them access to finances across all borders. Without the services offered by Ripple's Ripple Payments, this financial service expansion would not have been possible.

In the conference's closing keynote fire chat, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse spoke to discourage people from becoming 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:crypto maximalists, who tend to follow the belief that only one cryptocurrency and blockchain will exist. He believes that the world will depend on multiple blockchains and cryptocurrencies and that institutions will become more acceptin🐻g of cryptꩲos that demonstrate utility rather than only price speculation.

Garlinghouse also emphasized that countries need to work to establish clear regulatory frameworks rather than relying on existing laws.

The Bottom Line

Ripple Swell is a conference that has been held annually since 2017. The conference focuses on informing interested parties about developments in the Ripple ecosystem and regulatory concerns and hosts notable figures from the finance and cryptocurrency industries.