On June 24, Ripple's Chief Technology Officer David 'JoelKatz' Schwartz confirmed that the account involved in "Ripple co-founder Arthur Britto's first tweet on X in 14 years" was not attacked or leaked. Arthur Britto's tweet was a "blank face" emoji.
According to Cointelegraph, Britto, along with Schwartz and Mt. Gox founder Jed McCaleb, created the XRP Ledger launched in 2012, and subsequently helped develop the blockchain's token XRP(XRP). He also co-founded NewCoin with Schwartz, McCaleb, and Chris Larsen, which was later renamed OpenCoin and eventually became Ripple Labs. Afterward, he transitioned to an advisory role.
Britto is most known in the industry for his "mysterious" presence—with no verified photos, never having given an interview or made a public statement (excluding this emoji tweet), he seems to deliberately avoid the public eye. He is also listed as the founder and president of blockchain infrastructure company PolySign. Commercial documents from cryptocurrency trading platform Bitstamp show that Britto served as a director in May 2014 and left the position in September 2015.
Britto's name has been mentioned in several U.S. court case files, including the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple, but these documents only note him as a co-creator of XRP. In 2015, he also sued McCaleb in a California court, alleging that the creation of Stellar violated contract terms, claiming Stellar copied Ripple's code.
The Ripple team has explained that Britto chose to maintain privacy because management work "could bring enormous pressure" and that he is "introverted and extremely concerned about personal privacy", not wishing to become a public figure for personal reasons.
