From mastering 2% of the global Bitcoin to the driving force behind US stocks DAT: Dan Morehead and Pantera's encryption journey.

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The digital asset reserve company (DATs) has gradually warmed up recently, and looking behind these DAT companies, the American encryption venture capital institution Pantera is certainly one of the most active. Fortune magazine once interviewed Pantera founder Dan Morehead, and this article will introduce you to this former Goldman Sachs trader, reviewing his experience from holding 2% of the global Bitcoin supply to becoming the biggest driving force behind DAT companies.

Running a conference only earns 100 USD, Mt.Gox severely impacted Pantera.

Dan Morehead had a long trading career before entering Bitcoin, having worked at Goldman Sachs and Tiger, and then founded Pantera. However, the fund faced setbacks during the 2008 financial crisis, coinciding with the time when Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper.

Pantera was relaunched in 2013 and received support from two Princeton alumni, Pete Briger and Mike Novogratz of Fortress Group. At that time, Pantera purchased Bitcoin at $65 each, which surged to over $1,000 by the end of the year. However, it soon encountered the Mt. Gox incident, causing the price of Bitcoin to plummet by 85%.

In 2016, he held 170 meetings during his Bitcoin evangelism tour, spending an hour each time debating with potential investors to persuade them that Bitcoin was the most attractive investment opportunity. In the end, he raised only 1 million dollars for the struggling fund, and his own income was just 17,000 dollars. "That means I earned 100 dollars per meeting," he told Forbes.

The Cradle of Ancient Cryptocurrency Tycoons: Princeton University

Dan Morehead first heard about Bitcoin in 2011 when his Princeton University classmate Gavin Andresen was running a website where anyone could get 5 free Bitcoins by solving a captcha. But Morehead didn't pay much attention until a few years later when Briger invited him for coffee in San Francisco and talked about cryptocurrency, and Novogratz also called him. From then on, he was completely "possessed" by Bitcoin.

At that time, the classmates from Princeton University all became leaders in the encryption industry:

Mike Novogratz: later founded Galaxy Digital.

Pete Briger: Still active in the Bitcoin field.

Joe Lubin: Co-founder of Ethereum.

Gavin Andresen: Early Bitcoin developer.

Pantera once purchased 2% of the global Bitcoin supply and is now involved in the DAT field.

Pantera once bought 2% of the global Bitcoin supply, but they are not the fundamental trading type. Dan Morehead said, "My thought is that Bitcoin is certainly the most important, but just like the Internet, there won't be only one Internet company left." Therefore, they became early investors in Ripple Labs, and in fact, 86% of Pantera's venture investments are profitable.

Pantera continues to expand, preparing its fifth venture capital fund with a scale of 1 billion dollars, and has also entered the "digital asset vault (DAT)" field, focusing on publicly traded companies that hold cryptocurrencies.

This article, from mastering 2% of the world's Bitcoin to the driving force behind US stocks DAT: Dan Morehead and Pantera's encryption journey, first appeared in Chain News ABMedia.

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