Nik Bougalis, who led development of key XRP Ledger protocols for nearly a decade, has returned to the project’s source code. He marked the move by opening pull request PR #8300 in the official XRPLF/rippled repository, titled "I'm back, baby." The proposed low-level update redesigns BaseUInt, switches to 64-bit limbs where architecture permits and updates related protocol components, with the aim of improving performance and reliability. It also seeks to eliminate unsafe raw pointers and unchecked runtime constructors, strengthening compile-time code safety and helping protect the ledger from failures under critical loads. Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz endorsed the return on X on September 26, 2026, after previously saying that working with Bougalis again was the only development opportunity that could interrupt his own break. Bougalis, Ripple’s eighth employee and the author of key cryptographic patents for the platform, left the project in 2022 and served as CTO of the Algorand Foundation in 2025. RippleX head of engineering H. Ayo Akinyele said Bougalis was brought back to address ambitious next-generation technology challenges as real-world assets are integrated into XRPL and U.S. regulation changes.