In the latest episode of Block Stars, David Schwartz, Ripple CTO, teams up with leading experts Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy and Government Affairs at TRM Labs and Ronghui Gu, Co-Founder of CertiK to unravel the complexities of blockchain security. 

- Explore the evolution of blockchain security over the past decade, highlighting XRPL's stability and the opportunities and risks posed by smart contracts.
- Delve into the intricacies of blockchain security, discussing the latest advancements, challenges, and strategies for safeguarding digital assets.
- Gain valuable predictions and forecasts for the future of blockchain security, including emerging threats, regulatory trends, technological innovations. 

Join us for an enlightening discussion as we navigate the changing landscape of blockchain security and empower users to protect themselves in the digital age.

The groundbreaking July 2023 ruling from the SEC and XRP lawsuit found that XRP is not in and of itself a security. XRP's status as a non-security in the US and other jurisdictions provides a solid foundation of clarity for developers looking to establish and grow a blockchain-based business. This outcome further enables blockchain developers to build with confidence on the XRP Ledger - an open source and fully decentralized layer 1 blockchain powered by a global developer community.

But establishing XRP's status in the US was an arduous journey. With the lawsuit having reached an emphatic conclusion, this episode of Block Stars with David Schwartz features a very special guest, Ripple's Chief Legal Officer, Stu Alderoty, who sat down to discuss:

• The long road to legal clarity for XRP and what it means for the broader crypto and blockchain community
• Opportunities that have emerged in light of the ruling such as institutional adoption of blockchain solutions for finance, tokenization of real world assets (RWAs), Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and stablecoin issuers on the XRP Ledger, to name just a few
• The impact of the ruling on blockchain developers, financial institutions, businesses and the digital asset ecosystem

Developer communities drive innovation, collaboration and adoption within the blockchain and crypto space. But why are thriving developer communities so important in web3, and how do they foster further learning and development?

This episode of Block Stars with David Schwartz features special guest speakers from the  XRP Ledger Foundation and XRPL Commons to discuss:

• The significant impact of web3 communities on decentralization
• The different avenues and resources available for blockchain developers of all levels
• What the future holds for web3 developers and how those communities can evolve alongside the technology 

The tokenization of real-world assets (or RWAs) is one of—if not the—most enduring use cases for crypto and blockchain. According to recent reports, Boston Consulting Group puts the total estimated value of the tokenized RWA market at upwards of $16T by 2030. But since essentially anything can be tokenized, when we talk about tokenizing RWAs, we’re talking about boiling the ocean. 

This episode of Block Stars with David Schwartz features special guest speakers from $HOME, Thallo and Ripple to unpack and conceptualize:

- Examples of tokenized RWAs and their market opportunity
- The applications, use cases, and protocol standards for tokenized RWAs
- The technology's uses for developers, end users, and businesses

The latest episode of Block Stars with David Schwartz features special guest speakers from Heirloom, Fractal.ID, Ripple, and The & Company to demystify decentralized identity (DiD). David and guests dig into the follow topics in this episode:

- What is decentralized identity?
- Decentralized identity solutions and use cases in the real world
- DiD projects and specs developers are building now across blockchains
- What the future holds for DiD and other crypto-enabled technologies

The latest episode of Block Stars features David Schwartz and Antony Welfare—Senior Advisor at Ripple—to discuss the opportunity for DLT technology to support a CBDC system, global adoption and more.

In the newest episode of Block Stars, Ripple CTO David Schwartz sits down with John Kraski, Director of Strategic Partnerships at NFT Thought Leaders. The two discuss the current state of NFTs, the communities involved in the space and look ahead at the evolution of this technology.

In the latest episode of Block Stars, Ripple CTO David Schwartz talks to Daniel Vogel, CEO and Co-Founder of Mexico’s leading crypto exchange, Bitso. You'll  hear from Daniel on the state of crypto in Latin America, how Bitso almost became a video games payments specialist and more.

In the latest episode, David talks with serial entrepreneur Sid John Leopold about the environmental impact of blockchain technology and what it means for the future of money.

“Currencies are just a tool that we use to trade,” explains Sid. “We're going to use 'money 2.0' if it works better. The environment is the factor that affects us all. We don't want those tools to…drastically make our lives worse off in the future."

The latest episode of Block Stars is the conclusion of current Ripple CTO David Schwartz’s two-part conversation with former Ripple CTO, Stefan Thomas. Listen to part two of David and Stefan’s conversation on episode 10 of Block Stars for more on how and why Stefan developed ILP and to discover the critical piece of advice that Ripple’s outgoing CTO passed on to his successor.

On the latest episode of Block Stars, David Schwartz—the creator of the XRP Ledger and current CTO of Ripple, sat down with Stefan Thomas, former CTO of Ripple and current CEO of Coil, to discuss the early days of blockchain, and their time working together on the XRP Ledger, Codius and Interledger Protocol (ILP).

Most people don’t realize that prior to Ripple, David and Stefan both used to work on Bitcoin. Stefan helped create BitcoinJS, which is a JavaScript implementation of the Bitcoin blockchain. David tinkered around with Bitcoin Core, as a C++ developer with a lot of experience using applied cryptography to build distributed systems, and helped the early core contributors solve some problems via the Bitcoin forum.

Both were inspired by the decentralized nature of the technology, but also recognized some issues early on.