Twelve-Year Crypto Veteran, Pantera Capital's New Battlefield in Coin Stocks

Original author: Fairy, ChainCatcher

Original editor: TB, ChainCatcher

Pantera is building a "multi-currency version of the MicroStrategy investment matrix."

As one of the earliest bettors in the crypto world, Pantera Capital has bet on the dawn of Bitcoin, the summer of DeFi, and also stepped into the deep pit of FTX.

Twelve years later, it is still active, even more aggressive in the new wave of crypto-stock trends. Behind many listed companies financing to buy coins, there is the shadow of Pantera.

What kind of VC is this veteran of crypto narratives, the undying player on the cycle battlefield? And what new territories is it laying out now?

Pantera's betting story

Pantera Capital started betting on the crypto industry in 2013, one of the earliest crypto VCs. It launched the first U.S. investment fund focused on Bitcoin and bought about 2% of the world's Bitcoin between 2013 and 2015, ultimately achieving over 1000x returns.

However, what truly supports Pantera through cycles is not a single successful bet, but the continuous ability to respond to changes in market structure.

When the ICO boom arose, Pantera was the first to launch an early token fund; after DeFi Summer arrived, it established the Pantera Blockchain Fund, offering comprehensive investment opportunities in the cryptocurrency and blockchain markets. From fund forms to strategy configurations, Pantera's adaptive thinking closely follows the market.

Currently, Pantera manages five main funds: Venture Fund, Bitcoin Fund, Early Token Fund, Liquid Token Fund, and Pantera Fund. According to official data, its assets under management exceed $4.2 billion, with cumulative realized profits of about $547 million.

Pantera's investment pace remains tight. RootData shows it has invested in 214 projects, ranking 13th among all investment institutions, with 18 projects invested in the past year. Its investment layout mainly focuses on four sectors: infrastructure, DeFi, CeFi, and chain gaming.

Its portfolio includes star projects like Circle, Ripple, Polkadot, Coinbase, and StarkNet. But not every move has been successful; to date, 33 projects have ceased operations, including FTX and Lithium Finance.

In 2024, Pantera made a high-profile bet on TON, believing in its potential with a network of 900 million active users. This judgment led to the largest investment in the fund's history. On-chain analyst AI姨 estimates Pantera's investment in TON may exceed $250 million. However, TON's price has now retreated more than 60% from its 2024 high.

Even so, Pantera's investment trajectory clearly shows the self-iteration and staged adventures of a veteran crypto VC.

New battlefield: The rise of crypto-stocks and Pantera's strategy shift

In early 2025, the primary market cooled, with liquidity and exit paths becoming new propositions for crypto VCs. Yet, in this context, the "crypto-stock wave" quietly emerged.

This time, Pantera Capital once again smelled the shift in the battlefield. Within months, it evaluated over 50 listed companies with "financing to buy coins" as their core strategy and began deep involvement.

To seize this new opportunity, Pantera also launched the "DAT Fund." Currently, several Pantera Fund limited partners have committed capital, expected to invest over $100 million cumulatively in multiple DAT projects.

Now, its investments and layouts can be seen in "MicroStrategy" of different currencies. Below are some Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) companies Pantera has invested in:

Notably, several companies in the table have seen their stock prices surge over 100x in just a month. Pantera partner Cosmo Jiang describes such investments as a structure where "heads you win, tails you don't lose much."

[Note: Pantera typically enters DAT companies before they go public or while still priced close to their token net asset value (1.0x NAV), avoiding the high premiums of the public market.]

Regardless, Pantera Capital has secured a key position in this wave of crypto-stocks. As crypto KOL AB Kuai.Dong said: "Live, die, Pantera."

Dan Morehead, the "macro player's" crypto pivot

Understanding Pantera Capital's style inevitably involves its founder, Dan Morehead.

Dan Morehead's background is extremely "traditional": a Princeton engineering graduate who entered Wall Street, honed trading skills at Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and eventually became CFO and macro strategy head at hedge fund giant Tiger Management. At that time, he managed assets worth billions, navigating global currencies and interest rates with ease.

In 2003, he founded Pantera Capital, initially a regular investment firm. Until 2013, when a four-hour deep discussion with two friends ignited his interest in Bitcoin. From then on, Pantera transformed into a venture capital firm in the crypto space.

At the time, Bitcoin's price was on par with Tesla's, and Morehead made a bold decision: sell all Tesla stocks and go all-in on Bitcoin. This led to Pantera Capital's first success—the Bitcoin Investment Fund.

Dan Morehead once admitted that the key to investment lies in locking in opportunities where potential returns far outweigh risks. Risks always exist, but what truly matters is identifying targets capable of explosive returns.

He emphasized: "To achieve outsized returns, you can't follow the mainstream, can't invest in projects that every Wall Street firm has twenty analysts watching. This is why we repeatedly emphasize in our investor letters 'making alternative investments more alternative.'"

Today, although Morehead rarely appears in public, Pantera Capital still bears his deep imprint: bold, forward-looking, closely aligned with market structure.

Twelve years, multiple narratives, hundreds of projects, Pantera Capital searches for signals in chaos, reshaping paths amidst structural fission.

In this endless race of crypto, Pantera is still betting.

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