Who Is Riccardo Spagni? Ex-Monero Lead and Tari Co-Founder

Riccardo Spagni is the Monero developer known as fluffypony who served as the project's lead maintainer until December 2019, and his account made 2,672 of the 3,269 merges into Monero's main branch before he stepped down. A founding member of Monero's Core Team, Spagni went on to co-found Tari, a proof-of-work blockchain.

In practice, Monero's lead maintainer was the person whose account pressed the merge button. Spagni's account made 81.74% of those merges before the handover, including every one of the 534 in 2016. Almost seven years after he left the role, his 2,676 merges were still 48.46% of the branch's 5,522 through mid-October 2026, the most of any committer account.

Riccardo Spagni at a Glance

Who Is Riccardo Spagni?

Riccardo Spagni is a founding member of the Monero Core Team and the co-founder of Tari Labs, in the words of his speaker biography for Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town 2026, written for a January 2026 talk. The same biography says he served as Monero's lead maintainer "from Monero's inception until 2019".

Monero calls itself a private and untraceable cryptocurrency, and Phemex Academy sets out how privacy coins differ from public coins.

In the Monero community Spagni goes by fluffypony, the handle on his GitHub account and the name the Core Team used when it announced his handover.

His GitHub profile in late October 2026 lists both Monero and Tari as "Prior work", so his work on both projects is in the past. The record of his Monero years survives in the project's own code history.

Riccardo Spagni's Career: From Monero to Tari

Monero launched in April 2014, and three months later Spagni's account merged pull request #69 into its main branch, the first of his merges there.

He held the role the Core Team called lead maintainer for more than five years. The Core Team's December 2019 postannounced that "fluffypony is stepping down as the lead maintainer of Monero" and that "Snipa will be taking his place".

Spagni stayed on as a backup maintainer, and the post said he would "continue to remain active in the community as a maintainer".

Tari's code repository opened in June 2018, while Spagni was still running Monero's merges. He co-founded Tari Labs, which contributed to the protocol's development and announced its mainnet.

Spagni also invented OpenAlias, a standard that ties a domain name to a crypto address through a DNS text record. OpenAlias's own site says it grew out of Monero's development, because Monero's stealth addresses are at least 95 characters long, too long for you to memorise.

He co-created Yat as well, and his GitHub profile adds MyMonero to his prior work. Phemex Academy's guide to what decentralized identity is covers the wider idea of identities that their users own.

What Did Monero's Lead Maintainer Actually Do?

For most of Monero's first six years, code from its contributors reached the main branch through Spagni's account. His yearly share of the merges tells the story of the role.

The share slipped in 2018 and 2019 because luigi1111, a fellow maintainer, made nearly all of the rest. That came to 249 merges in 2018 and 305 in 2019. Spagni merged far more code than he wrote. Before the handover he authored 363 of the 5,797 commits on the main branch that weren't merges, a share of 6.26%. The title described a gatekeeper more than an author.

The merge counts miss the rest of the job. The December 2019 post handed most release engineering for Monero's command-line and GUI software to two other contributors and kept Spagni as a backup for both. It also shows that he was one of two people with access to Monero's downloads server and one of two approvers for its Monero-Announce mailing list, and it added people to both.

His four merges after the handover came in January, September and October 2020, in the backup role the Core Team's post described. GitHub records the last one, the October 2020 merge of pull request #6917, under his name with a verified signature. No later merge of his appears on the main branch through mid-October 2026.

Method: the counts take every merge commit on the first-parent line of Monero's master branch, bucketed by calendar year from each commit's timestamp, with the handover set at the start of 16 December 2019. Authorship counts every commit before that point that isn't a merge. Each git timestamp comes from the committer's own clock, and the counts take it as recorded.

Did Riccardo Spagni Create Monero?

No, Spagni didn't create Monero. Monero's history page answers who created Monero with "the founder, thankful_for_today". The page dates the launch to April 2014 and calls it a fair launch of the CryptoNote reference code, with no premine or instamine.

That founder "proposed some controversial changes that the community disagreed with", the page says, and "the Monero Core Team forked the project with the community following this new Core Team". Spagni was a founding member of that Core Team. Monero's own account gives the launch to one person and the fork to a team, and Spagni was part of that team.

Phemex's ZEC vs XMR privacy comparison sets the coin he maintained beside Zcash.

What Is Tari?

Tari is a proof-of-work blockchain whose transactions are confidential by default through MimbleWimble technology, according to the Chainwire release that announced its mainnet. Tari Labs announced the mainnet's launch on 6 May 2025 alongside Tari Universe, a desktop app that mines the network's XTM token on a Mac or PC.

Tari's site gives 11 November 2026 as the launch date of the Ootle, its Layer 2. Spagni's last commit to Tari's main code repository is dated July 2025, two months after the mainnet went live.

Is Monero on Phemex?

Phemex listed an XMR/USD perpetual in May 2021 and an XMR/USDT perpetual in December 2022, and it has since delisted both, so XMR has no live perpetual or order-book spot pair there. Futures use leverage, and a leveraged position is closed automatically if losses reach its margin.

The Monero (XMR) price page on Phemex tracks the market price and chart of the coin Spagni maintained for more than five years.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is fluffypony in Monero?

Fluffypony is the online handle of Riccardo Spagni, Monero's lead maintainer until December 2019. The Monero Core Team used that name in its December 2019 post announcing that he would step down and stay on as a backup maintainer.

What is Riccardo Spagni known for?

Riccardo Spagni is known as fluffypony, the founding Monero Core Team member who was Monero's lead maintainer until December 2019. Through mid-October 2026 his account had made more merges into Monero's main branch than any other, and he co-founded Tari Labs.

Who created Monero?

Monero's own history page names thankful_for_today as "the founder" of the coin, which launched in April 2014. After a dispute over proposed changes, the Monero Core Team forked the project. Riccardo Spagni was one of that team's founding members.

Who owns Monero?

Monero's own history page names no owner for the coin. It says the April 2014 launch had no premine or instamine and that no part of the block reward goes to development. The Core Team that forked the project "has provided oversight since", in the page's words.

Does Riccardo Spagni still work on Tari?

Riccardo Spagni's GitHub profile lists Tari under prior work, next to Monero. Spagni co-founded Tari Labs, which announced Tari's mainnet launch in May 2025, and his latest commit to Tari's main code repository dates from July 2025.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves substantial risk. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.