Pantera Capital has become one of the leading alternative hedge funds focusing on cryptocurrencies – making Dan Morehead millions in the process.
But what is the story behind Morehead and what is his net worth?
Who is Dan Morehead?
Dan Morehead was born in California, USA in 1965.
After graduating from Princeton University in 1987, Morehead joined Goldman Sachs as a mortgage derivatives trader.
His talent was soon recognised and he was soon promoted to co-head of the mortgage trading desk.
He then went on to hold roles at several other financial firms, including at the Bankers Trust in 1989 and moved to London to become head of FX options at Deutsche Bank in 1995.
READ MORE ON THE 24/7 PROJECT
In 2000, Morehead decided to take the plunge and start his own venture, co-founding the electronic foreign exchange platform, Atriax.
Backed by big names such as Citibank, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and Reuters, Atriax was set up to help facilitate the trading of foreign currencies between banks and clients as the internet started to take off.
However, despite the hype in the financial press, in 2002, the platform shut down.
One source said at the time: “Atriax’s problem was that it was dogged by poor technology from the start.
“Only four entities had managed to connect to the system by the time it closed.”
But this didn’t deter Morehead and one year later he set up Pantera Capital – a hedge fund management firm.
In March 2014, Moorhead decided to focus exclusively on Bitcoin, and other digital cryptocurrencies.
Morehead was introduced to Bitcoin in 2011 but it wasn’t until 2013 that he first invested.
Morehead said: “The reason it to be involved in is it’s just gonna disrupt so many different things.
“Over the decades, there have been things like Russian privatisation or Argentine farmland or Tesla Motors or whatever and those things are all political trades really interesting.
“But they’re just specific to that one region, you know, one asset class or whatever.
“The coin blockchain, you’re going to change so many different things, literally for billions of people, and it’s borderless. It operates in any country.”
Since 2013, Pantera’s Bitcoin Fund has returned $6 billion in profits to investors.
In 2017, Morehead became one of Coinbase’s earliest investors.
What is Dan Morehead’s net worth?
Dan Morehead has an estimated net worth of $500 million thanks to the rapid growth of Pantera Capital.