XRPLasVegas2026-Brett Molin From The XRPLFoundation

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Hello everyone. Great to see everybody here. My name is Brett Mullen. I used to work for Ripple for over a decade. I'm an XRP Ledger developer. I run infrastructure.

[00:00:14]I am currently the executive director of the XRP Ledger Foundation and uh I am Holden. So I'm here to tell you about the XRP Ledger Foundation.

[00:00:33]My slide goes to the next one. Here we go.

[00:00:38]So, the foundation here is here as a nonprofit organization to make sure that the ledger stays available to you. It stays secure and it stays decentralized.

[00:00:55]That is that is our mission. We're really here for you. We want to make sure that your XRP is safe and you can get to it and use it when you need to do it.

[00:01:10]How do we do this at the foundation?

[00:01:13]Well, we have a bunch of different things we do. We support developers.

[00:01:21]We help with education.

[00:01:25]But really, if you think about us, think about us, again, not to overuse the word, as really that foundational unit making sure that the ledger stays operational.

[00:01:39]So, my developers, they're the people that are working on the core protocol more than the people that are building on top of it. So, there's other organizations you may have heard about such as XRPL Commons.

[00:01:54]They're doing a lot of these same things, but they're doing it with the people building on top of the ledger, right? I'm working with developers who are developing those new features on the ledger. Like Paul from Uphold talked about the lending protocol. It's that's something that's new to the ledger itself. It's going to be in the next release of the software called Ripple D.

[00:02:18]That is what the XRP Ledger Foundation is doing. They're managing the release of that software. They're making sure that that new release is secure and they're making sure that the node operators out there are running it and some sort of organization between those those operators.

[00:02:40]So what's this mean to you? Something kind of concrete that that we can talk about that the foundation does is the foundation publishes what's called its default unique node list. So those of you who are new to the XRP community, you're going to hear people throw around these acronyms UNL or DUNL.

[00:03:04]That's what it is. unique node list and there are 35 node operators that we're all listening to and trusting to confirm our transactions.

[00:03:18]They are also voting on new features being added to the ledger. So for me, those are my senators. I need to work with those people and organize them and get them to feel comfortable with new features and to vote for those new features or to talk about why they don't want to vote for those new features.

[00:03:39]And we're always managing this tension between trying to organize something but staying decentralized.

[00:03:48]And this is what kind of keeps me up at night is you know am I am I gaining too much knowledge about the node operators?

[00:03:58]Is there any one person in my organization who is? We want to keep this network decentralized and there's a sweet spot here and that sweet spot is somewhere in between where Bitcoin and Ethereum are where anyone can run a node and where very closed down systems like Hideera are where it's a it's a closed system and the reason that the XRP ledger one of the Many reasons besides you all of course the XRP ledger has been successful is riding this middle ground being an open public decentralized network having anonymous access but still supporting the features that traditional finance needs such as privacy while never closing the door on the principles that brought us here in the first place.

[00:04:58]This is this is my job. It's and thinking about this and riding that middle line is very important.

[00:05:11]So if you come out of here today and someone says, "Oh, you know what does the XRP Ledger Foundation do?"

[00:05:19]We're here to make sure that the network is stable. Right? When I say stable, that it's always available to you. that your your XRP you can use it when you want to use it that it's secure that you'll never lose the assets that are issued on the XRP ledger and why doing that also making sure that this protocol this asset XRP and all the assets issued on the XRP blockchain are here in 200 years so there's no technology in the world that can just not iterate and still be around in in 50 100 years. So we need to iterate but also make sure as we're doing that we're staying secure. We're staying stable and you know again that's my job. It's looking out for your assets when network changes happen to make sure that you know even if some cool new feature is is uh very attractive that we do the rigor to make sure that that's not interrupting the most important thing which is you being able to access your assets when you when you need them.

[00:06:46]I have um a membership waiting list. I'd love for you all to scan the QR code and join and join that waiting list. I'll leave this up here for a while and and talk while why while you all are while you all are doing this. Um, you know, incredible opportunity here to engage with you all. And as I've been talking to people here, I think a majority of the people here are investors.

[00:07:17]And in my time at Ripple and even my time at the foundation, most of my exposure are to industry people. people from the blockchain industry, people from traditional finance, people who are building on the ledger, people who are running nodes, people who run nodes for other for other blockchains. When I go to other conferences, I can shake 30 hands and maybe one person is there as an investor. And I walked that line today and I talked to you all as you were waiting in line to get into this conference and it was 100% investors in in the community and that's you know an incredible opportunity for me to get that input. So, I'm here to also recruit you into the XRP Ledger Foundation, and we'll definitely have a membership level set up just just for you all. And I would love for you to come into this come into this community when we have the door open and and and join in with me. I don't think there's a lot of places for the investor community to really uh get together and to talk about things.

[00:08:33]So hopefully I now have uh a hundred new signups. There could be something special for the people who join the waiting list and don't and don't wait for membership to actually open up. So so please so please do that. Um and yeah, that's uh my short introduction for you to the XRP ledger uh foundation.

[00:08:58]Uh I hope that uh you can talk about it.

[00:09:02]Now remember if someone asks you, the XRP Ledger Foundation is here to make sure the XRP blockchain is available, secure, and evolved so it will be here in 200 years. And I thank you all for your support.