{"id":53114,"date":"2018-05-22T07:00:08","date_gmt":"2018-05-22T14:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cryptoslate.com\/?p=53114"},"modified":"2019-11-07T02:56:03","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T02:56:03","slug":"pantera-capital-ceo-dan-morehead-talks-bitcoin-and-blockchain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cryptoslate.com\/pantera-capital-ceo-dan-morehead-talks-bitcoin-and-blockchain\/","title":{"rendered":"Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead Talks Bitcoin and Blockchain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pantera Capital<\/a> is the United States' first investment firm focused on\u00a0blockchain technology. Back in 2014, Pantera announced<\/a> a partnership with Fortress Investment Group, indicating “a significant step in the push to move Bitcoin<\/a> into the financial mainstream.”<\/p>\n

In a recent blog post<\/a>, Pantera Capital addressed Bitcoin's growing popularity over the past five years, and its most significant obstacles going forward.<\/p>\n

\"Dan
Dan Morehead is the CEO and founder of Pantera Capital.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pantera was founded in 2003, originally focused on global macro hedge-fund investments \u2013 however, the firm turned its attention to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency assets after partnering with Fortress Investment Group.<\/p>\n

Dan Morehead<\/a>, the company's CEO, believes Q1 tax selloffs are largely to blame for the market's recent downtrend:<\/p>\n

“I believe that a large fraction of the downward pressure in Q1 was unintended tax selling\u200a\u2014\u200apeople who were surprised when their accountant told them how much they owed in taxes. They then had to sell crypto to pay the bill.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In an interview<\/a> last month with CNBC, Morehead said he believes Bitcoin is showing a strong buy signal. Bitcoin has been growing at a rate of 165% per year for the past six years. Assets growing at that rate rarely dip below their 200 days moving average\u00a0\u2013 but when they do, it is usually a good time to buy.<\/p>\n

The CME Group<\/a> and CBOE<\/a> recently launched Bitcoin futures trading platforms, decisions that Morehead believes are incredibly beneficial for the crypto market as a whole because they will draw in more investors. According to Morehead, Bitcoin's next step towards mainstream adoption is becoming a SEC regulated\u00a0custodian.<\/p>\n

Q: You stumbled very, very early, so you didn\u2019t just jump onto this train. What\u2019s holding back other institutions? Yours is well suited to opine on this, you\u2019ve been running an institutional hedge fund business for a long time.<\/em><\/h3>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>“Yeah, so there has been a lot of credentialization milestones, the biggest one recently is the CME and CBOE doing futures that helps bring in other investors. I think the last big one is a SEC regulated custodian. So when we launched our first fund, we had all the standard things you\u2019d have in normal hedge fund, but you don\u2019t yet have a regulated custodian. I think that\u2019s the last piece, and some firms have announced they will do crypto-custody within the next, say, 12 months. I think that will be a very big moment.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bitcoin: Then and Now<\/h2>\n

Back in 2014, Bloomberg spoke with Morehead and Susan Athey of Stanford to discuss the possibility of Bitcoin someday replacing existing monetary systems. Four years later on April 26th, 2018, Bloomberg revisited the topic<\/a> with the same panel members to discuss their past predictions.<\/p>\n

Q: What has changed in the last four years?\u00a0<\/em><\/h3>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>“In 2014 we had just launched the first cryptocurrency fund in the U.S. That\u2019s a perfect segue to four years later. We used to have one fund\u200a\u2014\u200awith one product\u200a\u2014\u200athat tracked one currency, and now we have four different products that trade 25 ICOs, and 25 liquid currencies, and 25 equity positions in blockchain oriented startups. It shows the massive expansion in this as an asset class.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In addition, Morehead highlighted a few impressive statistics:<\/p>\n