Wences Casares

Background

Wences Casares (born February 26, 1974) is an Argentine-born serial entrepreneur and angel investor based in Palo Alto, California ¹². He grew up on a sheep ranch in Patagonia, Argentina, approximately 100 miles from the nearest town ²³. His family lost their savings three times due to Argentina’s economic crises: currency devaluation in the 1980s, hyperinflation exceeding 5,000% annually in 1989-1990, and the 2001 “Corralito” banking crisis ³.

Casares earned a Rotary Club scholarship as a high school exchange student in Washington, Pennsylvania (1991-1992), then studied business administration for three years at the University of San Andres in Buenos Aires before dropping out ²⁴. He later completed the Owner/President Management Program at Harvard Business School in 2003 ³.

In 1994, he founded Internet Argentina S.A., the country’s first internet service provider ¹². In 1997 (some sources say 1998), he founded Patagon, which became Latin America’s first comprehensive internet financial services portal, expanding to the United States, Spain, and Germany ¹²³. Patagon’s investors included George Soros, Jorge Paulo Lemann, Intel, Microsoft, and JPMorgan Chase ¹. Banco Santander acquired Patagon for approximately $750 million in 2000, and it became Santander Online worldwide ¹²³.

In 2002, Casares and his partners at MECK Ltd. (a private investment firm he co-founded with Micky Malka) founded Banco Lemon, a retail bank for underbanked Brazilians that grew to 15 million customers before being acquired by Banco do Brasil in 2009 ²³⁵. He also founded Wanako Games in 2002, a video game developer known for the blockbuster game Assault Heroes (Xbox Live Game of the Year 2006), which was acquired by Activision ²³. In 2007, he co-founded Bling Nation, a mobile payments company ⁶. He founded Lemon Wallet, a digital wallet platform, which was acquired by LifeLock for approximately $43 million in 2013 ¹²³.

In 2013, he founded Xapo, a Bitcoin wallet and cold storage vault provider ¹⁷. Xapo stored Bitcoin in underground vaults on five continents, including a former Swiss military bunker, and became one of the largest Bitcoin custodians in the world ¹⁷⁸. In 2019, Casares sold Xapo’s custody business to Coinbase for $55 million ⁸. The company transitioned into Xapo Bank, a private bank for Bitcoin holders with a Gibraltar banking license, holding approximately 25,000 Bitcoin (worth roughly $1.3 billion as of early 2024) on its balance sheet ⁸. Casares now serves as chairman ⁸.

Casares has served on the board of directors of PayPal (appointed January 12, 2016, serving on the Compensation Committee) ⁹, the Diem Association (Meta’s cryptocurrency project) ¹, and nonprofit organizations Kiva and Endeavor ²⁹. He is an elected member of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders Class of 2011 ¹² and a 2017 Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network ³. He is a founding financial supporter of Brink, a nonprofit funding open-source Bitcoin development ¹⁰.

Widely known as Bitcoin’s “Patient Zero” — a term coined by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman — Casares is credited with convincing Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, Chamath Palihapitiya, Bill Miller, Mike Novogratz, Pete Briger, and other prominent figures in Silicon Valley and Wall Street to invest in Bitcoin ¹⁷¹¹.

Stated Thesis

(Self-reported: These represent what Casares says publicly about his investment focus. See Inferred Thesis for analysis of actual investment behavior.)

Casares’s public investment philosophy centers on Bitcoin as a transformative technology for global financial inclusion. He has stated that Bitcoin will be more impactful than the internet, particularly for the billions of people in emerging markets who lack access to stable currencies and banking ⁷¹².

On Bitcoin’s investment case, Casares published an essay titled “The case for a small allocation to Bitcoin” in March 2019, in which he argued that allocating just 1% of an investment portfolio to Bitcoin offers asymmetric risk-reward: if Bitcoin fails, the loss is only 1%, but if it succeeds, that position could be worth forty times the entire portfolio ¹³. He has stated his subjective estimate is that Bitcoin has at least a 50% chance of succeeding and at least a 20% chance of failing ¹³.

As an angel investor, Casares focuses on seed-stage companies and has a strong emphasis on Latin American entrepreneurs and fintech businesses ¹⁴. His co-founding of MECK Ltd. with Micky Malka reflects a thesis around backing technology and financial ventures in emerging markets ⁵.

Inferred Thesis

The analysis below is based on 13 verified angel investments across multiple aggregator sources ^14151617.

Sector concentration (based on 13 verified investments): - Fintech / financial services: 4 of 13 (31%) — Pago Rural, Tiaxa, Meanwhile, Alpen Labs - E-commerce / marketplaces: 3 of 13 (23%) — Nuvemshop, VivaReal, Cornershop - Bitcoin / crypto infrastructure: 3 of 13 (23%) — Meanwhile, Alpen Labs, Enigma - Enterprise software / translation: 2 of 13 (15%) — Gengo, Searchify - Social / other: 1 of 13 (8%) — Popego

Note: Some companies span multiple categories (e.g., Meanwhile is both fintech and crypto). The sample size of 13 is small for an angel investor; Casares may have additional private investments not tracked by aggregators.

Key patterns:

• Latin American founder affinity: A strong majority of his portfolio companies have Latin American founders or operate primarily in Latin American markets. Cornershop (Chile/Mexico), VivaReal (Brazil), Nuvemshop (Argentina/Brazil), Pago Rural (Argentina/Brazil), and Tiaxa (Chile) all serve Latin American markets. This reflects Casares’s own background and network across the region.

• Bitcoin conviction investor: His more recent investments (Meanwhile, Alpen Labs, Enigma) all relate to Bitcoin infrastructure, insurance, or privacy. This is consistent with his public statements about dedicating his career to helping Bitcoin succeed ⁷.

• Seed and pre-seed stage: Casares invests at the earliest stages. His investments in Searchify (Seed, 2011), Pago Rural (Pre-Seed, 2012), and Enigma (Pre-Seed, 2021) confirm a pre-seed/seed focus ¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷.

• Operator-investor with deep domain expertise: Unlike many pure financial angels, Casares has founded and exited multiple fintech companies. His portfolio companies align closely with domains where he has operational experience: payments (Tiaxa, Bling Nation background), e-commerce (Nuvemshop, Cornershop), and financial infrastructure (Pago Rural, Meanwhile).

• Notable exits: Cornershop was acquired by Uber in a deal valued at approximately $1.4 billion in total across 2019-2021 ¹⁸. VivaReal merged with ZAP Imoveis in 2017, and the combined entity was later acquired by OLX Brazil ¹⁹. Gengo was acquired on January 16, 2019 ¹⁵.

• Co-investor patterns: Casares frequently co-invests alongside other Latin American-focused investors, notably Kaszek Ventures, 500 Startups, and Monashees Capital. His partnership with Micky Malka (through MECK Ltd.) is a consistent thread across both his operating companies and investments ⁵²⁰.

Portfolio

This table represents 13 known investments. Given Casares’s extensive network and three decades in technology entrepreneurship, his actual angel portfolio is likely larger than what is publicly tracked.

In Their Own Words

On Bitcoin’s transformative potential:

“I truly believe that it may change the world more than the Internet did.” — Wences Casares, CoinDesk interview, June 2015 ⁷

“Bitcoin is exactly the same thing, but for money. It moves money from anywhere to anywhere, in real-time, for free and no one controls it and no one can stop it.” — Wences Casares, CoinDesk interview, June 2015 ⁷

“When I saw bitcoin, I said oh my god, this is the chance. It is going to change the lives of 5 billion people.” — Wences Casares, CoinDesk interview, June 2015 ⁷

On his personal commitment:

“I want to dedicate the rest of my career to help bitcoin succeed. I want do it from one permanent platform and I want that platform to be Xapo.” — Wences Casares, CoinDesk interview, June 2015 ⁷

“I am personally allocating a percentage of my net worth to this that is borderline irresponsible because I believe in it so much.” — Wences Casares, as quoted in the book Digital Gold ²³

On Bitcoin’s real-world use:

“What I like about Argentina is that it’s very real. People using bitcoin do not know technology, they are not financially savvy. They are every day people using bitcoin, not because they think it’s cool or glamorous but because it solves a problem.” — Wences Casares, CoinDesk interview, June 2015 ⁷

On Bitcoin as an investment:

“Bitcoin is a fascinating experiment but it is still just that: an experiment. As such it still has a chance of failing and becoming worthless.” — Wences Casares, “The case for a small allocation to Bitcoin,” March 2019 ¹³

“In my (subjective) opinion the chances of Bitcoin failing are at least 20%.” — Wences Casares, “The case for a small allocation to Bitcoin,” March 2019 ¹³

“In my (subjective) opinion those chances of succeeding are at least 50%.” — Wences Casares, “The case for a small allocation to Bitcoin,” March 2019 ¹³

On Bitcoin’s adoption:

“Nobody controls Bitcoin. Not Russ, not any one person, not any group of people, not any one company, not one country.” — Wences Casares, EconTalk podcast with Russ Roberts ¹²

“There will never be more than 21 million bitcoins.” — Wences Casares, EconTalk podcast with Russ Roberts ¹²

On joining the PayPal board:

“I am honored to serve on the board of an iconic global company dedicated to driving the transformation of money on a global scale.” — Wences Casares, PayPal press release, January 2016 ⁹

On entrepreneurship:

“To be an entrepreneur, you need to have some super strong convictions.” — Wences Casares, Stanford eCorner ²⁴

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. Casares is more widely discussed as a founder and Bitcoin evangelist than as an angel investor, and portfolio founders have not publicly commented on his role as an investor in their companies.

Connections

• Board member, PayPal — appointed January 12, 2016, serving on the Compensation Committee ⁹
• Board member, Diem Association — Meta’s cryptocurrency project ¹
• Former board member, Kiva — nonprofit focused on poverty alleviation through lending ²⁹
• Board member, Endeavor — nonprofit promoting high-impact entrepreneurship in emerging markets ²⁹
• Co-founder, MECK Ltd. — private investment firm, alongside Micky Malka (also known as Meyer Malka) ⁵
• Founding supporter, Brink — nonprofit funding open-source Bitcoin development, alongside John Pfeffer ¹⁰
• Henry Crown Fellow, Aspen Global Leadership Network (2017) ³
• Young Global Leaders, World Economic Forum (Class of 2011) ¹²
• Convinced prominent figures to invest in Bitcoin — credited with personally evangelizing Bitcoin to Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, Chamath Palihapitiya, Bill Miller, Mike Novogratz, and Pete Briger ¹⁷¹¹

Sources