14-year silence is broken. Who is Ripple co-founder Arthur Britto?

Author: Jesse Coghlan Source: cointelegraph Translation: Shan Ouba, Golden Finance

Arthur Britto, co-founder of XRP Ledger and co-founder of Ripple Labs, posted on his X account for the first time after 14 years of silence.

As the mysterious co-founder of Ripple, Arthur Britto spoke in public for the first time since he helped create the blockchain-focused company in 2011.

Britto posted his first public post on the X platform on Monday, his first post since he created the account in August 2011. He only shared an emoji without a mouth, which usually means "speechless", but the meaning varies depending on the occasion.

Another Ripple co-founder David Schwartz confirmed on X that the posts on Britto's account were "not hacked or compromised" and were genuine.

Who is Arthur Britto? What is he famous for?

Britto co-founded the XRP Ledger with David Schwartz and Mt. Gox founder Jed McCaleb, which launched in 2012 and later added its native token XRP. He was also one of the co-founders of NewCoin (along with Schwartz, McCaleb, and Chris Larsen), which was later renamed OpenCoin and eventually Ripple Labs, where Britto served as an advisor.

Britto is perhaps best known as a "ghost figure." With no verified personal photos to date, he has never given an interview or made an official statement (except for this emoji) and has always tried his best to avoid entering the public eye.

He is also the founder and chairman of blockchain infrastructure company PolySign. Bitstamp listed Britto as a director in a May 2014 corporate filing, though the position was revoked in September 2015.

Britto's name has also appeared in filings in multiple U.S. legal cases, including the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple Labs, where he is only mentioned as a co-creator of XRP.

He also sued McCaleb in 2015 after McCaleb founded Stellar, which Britto accused of plagiarizing Ripple's code.

Britto is real and extremely private

Although Britto's whereabouts are mysterious and have sparked conspiracy theories about whether he really exists, many have confirmed that he is a real person and is extremely private.

"He is a real person and a completely independent individual. But he takes privacy very seriously." David Schwartz said this when asked about Britto in the X post last November.

The Block reported in 2019 that Ripple's public relations team said that the reason why Britto chose to keep a very low profile was because the process of managing the company could be physically and mentally exhausting. He is "an introverted and extremely private person" and does not want to become a public figure for personal reasons.

XRP Price Rises More Than 8%

In the past 24 hours, XRP has risen 8.1%, with most of the gains occurring in the 14 hours after Britto published the X post.

At 17:00 UTC on Monday, about an hour after Britto published the post, the price of XRP fell to a 24-hour low of $1.97, and then quickly rose to around $2.20.

However, the timing of this rise also coincided with the market's renewed optimism about a ceasefire in the Israel-Iran conflict.