Wenceslao Casares, also known as Wences Casares (born 26 February 1974) is an

Argentinian Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or ( feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

entrepreneur and businessman based in Silicon Valley based fintech. He is the CEO of Xapo Bank, and founded Internet Argentina,

Wanako Games Behaviour Interactive Chile Ltda. (Behaviour Santiago; formerly Wanako Games Chile Ltda.) was a Chilean video game developer based in Santiago. The company was founded as Wanako Games in 2002, by Esteban Sosnik, Tiburcio de la Cárcova, Santi ...

, Patagon,

Lemon Wallet Lemon Wallet was a cloud-based digital wallet that allowed users to store digital copies of credit cards, debit cards, reward cards, as well as identification, and other card information. The service was released in July 2011 and the company is b ...

, and Banco Lemon. Casares sits on the boards of

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

, Diem, and Endeavor.

Early life

Casares is the eldest of four from a family of sheep ranchers in

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

. In high school, Casares earned a

Rotary Club Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. Its stated mission is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through hefellowship of business, prof ...

scholarship as an exchange student in

Washington, Pennsylvania Washington is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Pennsylvania. A part of the Greater Pittsburgh area in the southwestern part of the state, the city is home to Washington & Jefferson College and Pony League baseball. The populat ...

. He returned to

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

to study business administration for three years at the University of San Andrés and dropped out to launch Argentina's first

Internet Service Provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise priva ...

, 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 The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

, and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

. Patagon was acquired by the Spanish bank,

Banco Santander Banco Santander, S.A., doing business as Santander Group (, , Spanish: ), is a Spanish multinational financial services company based in Madrid and Santander in Spain. Additionally, Santander maintains a presence in all global financial centr ...

for $750 million and became Santander Online worldwide. Investors in Patagon included

George Soros George Soros ( name written in eastern order), (born György Schwartz, August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist. , he had a net worth of US$8.6 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated mo ...

, Intel, Microsoft, JP Morgan Chase, and entrepreneur Fred Wilson.

Career

In 2002, Casares founded

, (later Behaviour Santiago), a videogame developer headquartered in New York City. Wanako Games was best known for the blockbuster game

Assault Heroes ''Assault Heroes'' is an arcade-style, top-down shooter video game developed by Wanako Games. The game has the player driving 4x4 vehicles, piloting speedboats, or proceeding on foot against enemy hordes. Players can play alone or co-operativel ...

and was acquired by

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...

in 2007. In 2002, Casares founded Banco Lemon, a bank based in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, which was acquired by Banco do Brasil in 2009."Banco do Brasil Acquires Banco Lemon Correspondent Branch Network,"
''NS Banking'', July 15, 2009. Casares was the founder and CEO of

, a digital wallet platform. In 2013 the American firm

LifeLock LifeLock Inc. is an American identity theft protection company based in Tempe, Arizona. LifeLock's system monitors for identity theft, the use of personal information, and credit score changes. LifeLock was acquired by computer security comp ...

bought Lemon for about $43 million (US).

Xapo

Casares is the CEO of

Xapo Xapo is an international, private bank headquartered in Gibraltar and licensed by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. The company originally provided a bitcoin wallet combined with a cold storage vault and a bitcoin-based debit card a ...

, a bitcoin wallet startup based in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

. Xapo is said to be the largest custodian of bitcoin in the world and is believed to hold as much as $10 billion of the

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...

in underground vaults on five continents including in a former Swiss military bunker. Xapo has raised $40 million from leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms. Widely known as "Patient Zero", Quartz reported that Casares was the entrepreneur to convince

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

Reid Hoffman Reid Garrett Hoffman (born August 5, 1967) is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman was the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for prof ...

, and other tech veterans in Silicon Valley to invest in bitcoin.

Philanthropy

In 2011, Casares was on the jury of the Cartier Women’s Initiative awards. He is a member of the 2017 Class o
Henry Crown Fellows
in the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the

Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1949 as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. The institute's stated aim is the realization of "a free, just, and equitable society" through seminars, policy programs ...

. He is an elected member of the World Economic Forum's “

Young Global Leaders Forum of Young Global Leaders, or Young Global Leaders (YGL), was created by Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum. The YGL, a non-profit organization managed from Geneva, Switzerland, is under the supervision of the Swiss governme ...

” Class of 2011 and regularly attends the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...

Annual Meeting in

Davos , neighboring_municipalities= Arosa, Bergün/Bravuogn, Klosters-Serneus, Langwies, S-chanf, Susch , twintowns = } Davos (, ; or ; rm, ; archaic it, Tavate) is an Alps, Alpine resort town and a Municipalities of Switzerland, muni ...

, Switzerland. He is a member of the

Young Presidents' Organization YPO (formerly Young Presidents' Organization) is an American-based worldwide leadership community of chief executives with approximately 29,000 members in more than 130 countries, according to the organization's 2019 YPO international fact sheet. ...

. In 2010 Casares partnered with Pablo Bosch to found Las Majadas de Pirque, a social capital and innovation facility owned by Casares in

Santiago, Chile Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

. He was formerly a board member at

Kiva A kiva is a space used by Puebloans for rites and political meetings, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo peoples, "kiva" means a large room that is circular and underground ...

and Endeavor.

References

External links

"Son of Sheep Ranchers, Lemon Wallet Co-Founder Wences Casares is a Serial Entrepreneur"
by Melissa Aparicio " Fox News Latino"
"The Difference between $1 Billion-Plus in Exits and 'Success'"
by Sarah Lacy ''

Techcrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper An online newspaper (or electronic news or electronic news publication) is the online version of a newspaper, either as a stand-alone publication or as the online version of a printed periodical. Goi ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Casares, Wences Argentine businesspeople Living people People associated with cryptocurrency 1974 births Harvard Business School alumni Henry Crown Fellows