Wences Casares

Wences Casares is CEO at Xapo. Entrepreneur specialized in technology and finance. He also known as Wences Casares (born February 26, 1974) is an Argentinian technology entrepreneur. He is the CEO of Bitcoin wallet provider, Xapo, and founded Internet Argentina, Wanako Games, Patagon, Lemon Wallet, and Banco Lemon. Casares sits on the boards of PayPal, Endeavor, and Coin Center. Casares is the eldest of four from a family of sheep ranchers in Patagonia, Argentina. In high school, Casares earned a Rotary Club scholarship as an exchange student in Washington, Pennsylvania. He returned to Buenos Aires to study business administration for three years at the University of San Andrés and dropped out to launch Argentina's first Internet Service Provider, Internet Argentina S.A. in 1994. He exited the company and then founded Argentine online brokerage, Patagon, in 1997. Patagon established itself as Latin America's leading comprehensive Internet financial services portal and expanded its online banking services to the United States, Spain, and Germany. Patagon was acquired by the Spanish bank, Banco Santander for $750 million and became Santander Online worldwide. Investors in Patagon included George Soros, Intel, Microsoft, JP Morgan Chase, and entrepreneur Fred Wilson.