Arthur Breitman co-founded Tezos, the blockchain behind a $232 million ICO that ranked among the largest crypto fundraises of 2017. A former quantitative analyst at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, he wrote the original Tezos proposal under the pseudonym L.M. Goodman before building the network with his wife and co-founder, Kathleen Breitman.
Nearly a decade later, he remains Tezos’ CTO, still fielding blunt questions about the token’s fall from a top-10 cryptocurrency to well outside the top 80. No named financial publication has confirmed what that is worth to him personally.
Who Is Arthur Breitman?
CryptoSlate describes Breitman as French-born. He studied applied mathematics and computer science at France’s École Polytechnique, then went to NYU’s Courant Institute for graduate study. He worked as a quantitative analyst at Goldman Sachs, then as a vice president at Morgan Stanley, a background that CryptoSlate ties to Tezos’ focus on protocol correctness, and later as a research engineer at Google X and Waymo.
In 2014, while still at Morgan Stanley, he published a whitepaper proposing a blockchain that could upgrade its own rules through on-chain voting, under the pseudonym L.M. Goodman, Cointelegraph reported. That paper became Tezos, the project that put Breitman among the founders profiled on our crypto personalities page.
Arthur Breitman’s Career and Contributions
Breitman and Kathleen Breitman founded Dynamic Ledger Solutions in 2015 to build the protocol. In July 2017, the Tezos Foundation raised $232 million in under two weeks, one of the largest ICOs of the era, per CoinDesk.
The celebration didn’t last. A fight between the Breitmans and Johann Gevers, then Tezos Foundation president, over the raised funds delayed the launch and resulted in class-action lawsuits alleging the token sale was an unregistered securities offering. Reuters reported that FINRA fined Breitman $20,000 in 2018 and barred him from broker-dealer activity for two years over Tezos’ undisclosed business at Morgan Stanley.
Gevers resigned, and Tezos launched its mainnet that September. In 2020, the Foundation paid $25 million to settle the class action without a court ruling on whether the ICO was an unregistered securities sale, CoinDesk reported.
Arthur Breitman’s Views and Positions
Breitman argues that Bitcoin’s biggest vulnerability isn’t cryptographic. It’s social. In an interview with Cointelegraph at EthCC 2026 about quantum computing’s threat to Bitcoin’s key encryption, Breitman said directly: “The coding work could be done this afternoon.” The harder problem, he told Cointelegraph, is convincing millions of holders to migrate their keys.
That skepticism carries into his read on crypto markets generally. Breitman described Bitcoin as a momentum asset that draws buyers during rallies and gets sold off once uncertainty sets in, citing the 2020 COVID crash, and warned that public companies stockpiling Bitcoin on unsustainable stock premiums face similar risk.
Arthur Breitman in the News
In April 2026, Breitman’s Cointelegraph interview at EthCC on Bitcoin’s quantum computing readiness reinforced his standing as an outside commentator on Bitcoin, not just Tezos. The remarks came with no resolution or deadline attached, reflecting a broader shift in his recent commentary toward risks facing crypto markets generally.
Frequently Asked Questions
Need a refresher on Arthur Breitman? Here are the questions readers most often ask about him.
Who is Arthur Breitman?
Arthur Breitman is a French-born computer scientist and former Wall Street quantitative analyst who co-founded Tezos with his wife, Kathleen Breitman. He authored the original Tezos whitepaper in 2014 under the pseudonym L.M. Goodman and remains the network’s CTO in 2026.
What did Arthur Breitman invent or found?
Breitman co-founded Tezos, a self-amending blockchain that lets token holders vote to upgrade the protocol without a hard fork. He also co-founded Dynamic Ledger Solutions, the company that built Tezos ahead of its 2017 ICO.
Did Arthur Breitman face legal trouble over the Tezos ICO?
Yes. FINRA fined Breitman $20,000 in 2018 for failing to disclose Tezos business while at Morgan Stanley. The Tezos Foundation separately settled a class-action lawsuit over the ICO for $25 million in 2020, though a court never ruled on whether the sale was an unregistered securities offering.
Is Arthur Breitman still involved with Tezos in 2026?
Yes. Breitman remains Tezos’ CTO and continues to speak publicly about the project and the wider crypto market, including a Cointelegraph interview at EthCC 2026 on Bitcoin’s quantum computing risks.
