New York hosts a dense week of XRP Ledger activity this October. XRPL Commons has scheduled an XRP Ledger Hackathon for October 24-25, 2026, in partnership with the XRP Ledger Foundation. The format is a 36-hour in-person sprint. Ripple’s Swell conference then opens October 27 at The Shed in Hudson Yards. Teams therefore finish building on Sunday and walk into the industry’s largest XRPL gathering two days later.
Back from the summer break and making fall plans? Join us in New York! XRP Ledger Hackathon October 24–25. The weekend before Swell.
— XRPL Commons (@xrpl_commons) August 24, 2026
Hosted by @xrpl_commons in partnership with @XRPLF.
36 hours to sprint, build, and ship on the XRP Ledger.
Already building on XRPL or just… pic.twitter.com/aoSwprn8j0
A Builder Weekend Wired Into Swell Week
The scheduling here is deliberate rather than coincidental. Ripple’s own Swell FAQ confirms a hackathon the weekend prior. Additionally, XRPL Commons lists it as the “SWELL XRPL Hackathon” on its events calendar. Swell 2026 runs October 27-29 at 545 W 30th Street in Manhattan. Notably, this is the first year Ripple has merged Swell with Apex, its developer-focused summit. As a result, the conference now serves institutional executives and protocol engineers under one roof. The hackathon effectively becomes the on-ramp, giving teams a finished demo before the main stage lights up.
Four Tracks Aimed at XRPL’s Open Questions
The Luma listing outlines four tracks, and each one maps to a live area of ledger development. Protocol Innovation covers amendments, client implementations, and core tooling. Agentic Finance asks builders to create rails that let autonomous agents transact safely at machine speed. Lending & Borrowing targets the XRP Ledger Lending Protocol (XLS-66) and Single Asset Vaults (XLS-65). Finally, Why Not stays open to any XRPL project that does not fit the other three.
The lending track carries the most immediate weight. Both amendments entered validator voting after the v3.1.0 release and remain short of activation. As of mid-August 2026, XLS-65 sat near 40% validator support while XLS-66 held above 37%. An XRPL amendment needs more than 80% support sustained for two consecutive weeks before it goes live. Ripple’s validator backs both proposals, and devnet testing is already open. Consequently, hackathon teams get to build against credit primitives that the network has not yet switched on.
A Core Dev Bootcamp Runs the Week Before
XRPL Commons paired the hackathon with a separate three-day training. Core Dev Bootcamp #2 runs October 20-22 in New York, in person, and it accepts C++ developers only. Attendees work through the rippled codebase and the amendment process alongside core developers. Commons then routes graduates directly into the hackathon’s Protocol Innovation track. That pipeline matters because XRPL’s consensus layer has a small contributor base relative to its transaction volume. Turning a bootcamp lesson into a submitted amendment draft is a narrow but real path into protocol maintenance.
Ledger Attaches $10,000 in Hardware Security Bounties
Hardware wallet maker Ledger published its own bounty page for the New York event. The company put up $10,000 across three prize categories. Core Integrations takes $4,000 and targets gaps in Ledger’s XRPL support, including signer kits and human-readable transaction previews. Agentic Finance also takes $4,000, focused on device-backed approval flows for agents that pay for tools and services. Creative Minds holds the remaining $2,000 as an open category. Importantly, Ledger requires that its device act as a real trust layer, not wallet branding. Submissions also need a working demo on the XRP Ledger or its EVM sidechain.
The Organizers and the Stack They Are Building On
XRPL Commons is a Paris-based nonprofit association that supports XRPL developers, educators, and entrepreneurs. It runs The Aquarium, a Paris residency program for teams building on the ledger. Grants, university partnerships, and meetups across Europe round out the work. Its 2026 hackathon record is deep. HACK THE BLOCK ran at Paris Blockchain Week in April with a €12,500 pool. March brought a stablecoins and payments event in Lausanne with EPFL’s Blockchain Student Association. The virtual Make Waves buildathon then carried a 50,000 XRP pool. The XRP Ledger Foundation joins as partner rather than host. The Foundation operates independently from Ripple and stewards protocol security, standards, and validator support.
The technical backdrop explains why the tracks look the way they do. XRPL activated Credentials in September 2025, giving institutions onchain attestations for KYC and compliance status. Multi-Purpose Tokens followed in October 2025, adding a native standard for issuing real-world assets with metadata. Then in February 2026, the network turned on Permissioned Domains and the Permissioned DEX. Regulated entities can now run gated order books. Meanwhile, the XRPL EVM sidechain passed its first mainnet year on June 30, 2026. It bridges XRP through Axelar, so Solidity developers can reach XRPL liquidity. Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin adds distribution. Global supply reached roughly $1.94 billion on August 21, 2026, split across XRPL and Ethereum.
What Builders Should Weigh Before Registering
Registration runs through Luma and requires host approval. XRPL Commons notes a possible refundable deposit if the event oversubscribes. A standard code of conduct and filming consent also apply. Existing projects can enter, however only work completed during the 36 hours counts toward judging. Commons has not yet published mentors, sponsors, or the full judging rubric. However, it has told followers those details are coming. Anyone planning to attend should also watch for impersonation, since Commons has warned that fake event pages have circulated. For developers already weighing a trip to Swell, arriving three days early costs little. The payoff is a shipped prototype, in a room full of the people who fund them.
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