Wences Casares

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Wences Casares is the CEO of Xapo, a Bitcoin wallet provider. He is an Argentinian technology entrepreneur, and is also known for founding Internet Argentina, Wanako Games, Patagon, Lemon Wallet, and Banco Lemon. Casares sits on the boards of PayPal, Endeavor, and Coin Center. He was born on February 26, 1974, and grew up as the eldest of four in a family of sheep ranchers in Patagonia, Argentina. In high school, he was awarded a Rotary Club scholarship to serve as an exchange student in Washington, Pennsylvania. He returned to Buenos Aires to study business administration at the University of San Andr¨¦s, but dropped out to launch Argentina's first Internet Service Provider, Internet Argentina S.A., in 1994. After exiting the company, he founded Argentine online brokerage, Patagon, in 1997. Patagon quickly became Latin America's leading comprehensive Internet financial services portal and expanded its online banking services to the United States, Spain, and Germany. Patagon was eventually 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