- Arthur Britto, a co-founder of Ripple and co-creator of the XRP Ledger, has broken his silence on X after 14 years.
- This is his first-ever public post since helping launch the XRP Ledger in 2012.
- Britto has also filed several patents related to his latest venture, PolySign.
Ripple (XRP) is one of the world’s top cryptocurrencies, shaped by multiple founders. One name, Arthur Britto, has lingered in obscurity for well over a decade.
Now, in a single cryptic post to X, co-founder Britto’s return has ignited speculation that a major XRP breakthrough is just around the corner.
Ripple’s Satoshi
The cryptic post from Britto features just one emoji, standing as the sole piece of content, and the first post from Britto’s X account, which was created in August 2011.
Confirming that this isn’t a hoax or the scheme of some hacker, Ripple CTO and long-time Britto collaborator, David Schwartz, confirmed the post is legitimate.
Excitement amongst the community is palpable, as Britto, not only an enigma on par with Bitcoin’s Satoshi Nakamoto, has reportedly stated that XRP is “designed ” to be a $10,000 token and needs to scale to 7.5 billion users.
That said, credibility around this quote is questionable as Britto is one of the most private individuals in crypto history, having rarely, if ever, been photographed or interviewed.
Britto’s Past
Before becoming a co-founder of Ripple, Britto worked in the video game industry as an artist, designer, and programmer.
He also used to operate a now-defunct Bitcoin exchange and served as CEO of one of the first Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Information Access Technologies.
In 2011, he began developing the XRP Ledger with Schwartz and Jed McCaleb, and later co-founded Ripple alongside McCaleb and Chris Larsen.
Between 2006 and 2008, Britto filed three patents on data storage in distributed systems. Following this, he seemingly went on a hiatus as he began working with Ripple.
Then, in 2020, fresh distributed ledger system (DLT) filings began pouring in, reaching a total of 16 between then and December 2024.
Several of these are attributed to PolySign Inc., a firm that Britto founded in 2017, with David Schwartz being listed as one of the many, or sole, inventors. Furthermore, Schwartz is a board member and advisor on PolySign.
It appears as though Britto has been working hard on a new suite of crypto infrastructure, which, as per the website , will offer:
“[…]state-of-the-art, secure, scalable infrastructure for financial institutions to fully leverage their digital assets.”
Perhaps Arthur Britto’s resurfacing is less about Ripple and more to do with PolySign, a new venture he’s evidently very active in.
