Source. Wit Olzweski – Shutterstock
- This year’s swell conference started a few hours ago and will be held online this year.
- Among the prominent speakers are personalities from Blockchain and Fintech companies and the World Bank.
Due to the ongoing corona pandemic, this year’s swell conference is taking place online and started a few hours ago. The conference was opened by Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who announced a further expansion of the RippleNet and many exciting discussions. In the past the XRP price could benefit from a hype around the Swell conference.
Currently, however, the XRP price is following the trend of the crypto market and has been trending sideways for the last 24 hours, dropping 0.76% to a price of $0.2564. The market capitalization has also changed little and stands at $11.54 billion at the time of writing. XRP thus ranks fourth among the largest cryptocurrencies.
At last year’s Swell conference, MoneyGram’s CEO announced that 10% of the total transaction volume between Mexico and the United States is handled over RippleNet. However, this supposedly strong news had no direct impact on the price of XRP. Accordingly, the expectations of investors for this year’s conference are correspondingly low.
Key Speakers: Blockchain veterans and World Bank representatives
Not all speakers of both days are yet listed on the official website, but numerous heavyweights of the fintech and financial industry are already represented. Among others, Mahesh Uttamchandani, a World Bank representative, will speak at the conference. Uttamchandani is concerned with infrastructure development in the global practice of finance, competitiveness and innovation.
He heads the areas of payment and market infrastructures and the global framework program to support the financial inclusion of disadvantaged countries and entities worldwide. Ripple is also committed to providing people and companies around the world with access to an inclusive and fair financial system.
Recently, rumors have been circulating that Ripple may be forcing cooperation with some central banks around the world. Ripple has met with representatives of the central bank of Brazil, among others, but the meeting was closed to the public. So far, no further information has been leaked. Ripple had opened an office in Brazil in June 2019 to build a new customer base in Brazil and throughout South America.
In addition, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently caused quite a stir when he shared a tweet from ECB boss Christine Lagarde. Lagarde called for a faster digital transition to a new monetary system that supports “a complete banking and capital market union and state-of-the-art payment systems. He said on Twitter that Ripple can offer just that.
Blockchain Association Executive Director Kristin Smith will also attend the conference. Smith is Executive Director of the Blockchain Association, the Washington DC-based trade association representing the most prominent and respected organizations in the crypto industry. Ripple also joined the association last October.
The Blockchain Association promotes the development of long-term cooperation between technology leaders such as Ripple and policy makers and government agencies in the United States. This is intended to effectively promote the adaptation and further development in the field of blockchain technology. The representative of the World Economic Forum Sheila Waren is among the other participants. She recently praised the crypto industry and stated that the financial world of tomorrow will be fairer and more accessible for everyone.
TPBank CEO Hung Nguyen will also attend the conference. TPBank has been using RippleNet since last year to process cross-border payments quickly and cost-effectively. The Asian market is becoming increasingly important for Ripple, so that Ripple is also continuing its expansion in this region.
Other prominent speakers include Ousmène Mandeng from Accenture, Tjada D’Oyen McKenna from Mercy Corps, Alenka Grealish from Celent and David Mills from the Federal Reserve Board of the US Federal Reserve. A complete list of all speakers can be found here.