Brad Garlinghouse (브래드 갈링하우스), Ripple's chief executive officer, said the crypto industry is at a practical turning point ahead of the annual Swell 2026 event to be held in New York in October.

On June 18, blockchain media outlet U.Today reported that Garlinghouse, previewing the event, also stressed institutional adoption, expanding real-world use and an expansion of the event's scale.

In a public statement, Garlinghouse said he has been in the crypto industry long enough to know when a moment is truly important. He said the current timing matters, and explained that the 10th anniversary of Swell, real scale, institutional adoption, and the first time Swell and Apex will be held together this autumn have converged.

Monica Long, Ripple president, said Swell 2026 is the biggest event in Ripple's history. She introduced plans to run multiple tracks, including institutions, ecosystem and innovation, alongside main-stage keynote speeches. It is a structure in which Ripple highlights its institutional business and its developer ecosystem within a single event.

David Schwartz, a former Ripple chief technology officer, said the event will focus on real-world use cases and developer activity around XRP and the XRP Ledger. He said, "I don't want to miss the biggest event," indicating he would take part. He also said, "The best part of this event is seeing new ways people use XRP and examples built on the XRP Ledger."

Schwartz said the event will cover key areas of use including payments, tokenisation, interoperability, decentralised finance, and artificial intelligence. This aligns with a move for Ripple to present a broader digital asset infrastructure and developer uses beyond a simple remittance network. Detailed announcements or whether new products will be unveiled were not disclosed.

The speaker lineup is also drawing attention. Hollywood actor and philanthropist Matt Damon is set to introduce how the non-profit Water.org is using Ripple Payments and the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD. Ripple will, through this, put use cases of its payment service and stablecoin on stage.

Tom Farley, chairman and chief executive officer of crypto exchange Bullish and a former president of the New York Stock Exchange, will also take part. By putting figures linking traditional finance and the crypto industry at the forefront, Ripple is expected at this Swell to make institutional adoption and points of contact with the market even clearer.

Against this backdrop, Swell 2026 is expected to be a testing ground for Ripple to show payments and stablecoins, the XRP Ledger ecosystem and its institutional business bundled within a single event. That is also the backdrop to Garlinghouse's emphasis that now is a truly important moment.

I've been in crypto long enough to know when a moment is real. This is one of them. 10 years of Swell converging with real scale, institutional adoption, and Swell + Apex together for the first time this fall. We've been building toward this moment — see you in New York!… pic.twitter.com/EQnLPMmLrA