Mike Novogratz

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Bio

  • Michael Novogratz
  • Renowned billionaire ex-hedge fund manager
  • Used to be roommates with Joseph Lubin while at Princeton.

A well-known macro hedge fund manager, Novogratz, who hit the Forbes billionaires list in 2007 before the ensuing economic meltdown, seems to have pulled off a nifty comeback. He began investing in crypto in 2013 and left Fortress Investment Group in 2015 to focus on the space. Given his background, Novagratz approached crypto as a trader.

"The guys who have done the best are the true believers who don't have the speculative DNA," says Novogratz, 53. "If I had literally not sold my Ethereum when it was at $15, I probably would have made--I can't tell you how much because it would make me sick." (Ethereum recently changed hands for more than $1,000.) "You would kill yourself if you think that way," he adds. Novogratz hasn't been shy about terming the current environment a bubble--his goal is to make as much money as possible before it pops.

Right now that means rolling part of his digital currency winnings into his latest play, Galaxy Digital, a merchant bank devoted to crypto that he is working to list publicly in Canada.\

  • Got a Terra tattoo after LUNA reached $100. When UST depegged and the Terra ecosystem crashed down, he reflected on it writing: "My tattoo will be a constant reminder that venture investing requires humility."

Occupations

Investments

"He said that he first started buying Bitcoin at around $95 but that it was pure speculation. He then called up Dan Morehead, CEO of investment firm Pantera, and asked him to look into it.“After two weeks, he called me back and said, ‘Dude this is going to change the world for this and this reasons, coolest thing I’ve found, thanks so much,’” Novogratz said. The three of them decided to invest. Morehead started with a purchase of 30,000 Bitcoin. “We were like, I’ll have 30,001 because we couldn’t let him have more than we had. We roughly all bought the same amount. I actually wanted to sell it at $1,000. To sell it and buy a jet,” he said, adding, “My partner, [Peter] Briger, wouldn’t let me and he was so adamant, he actually went out and bought Bitcoin for Fortress’s balance sheet.” Since the company was buying, Novogratz said, he couldn’t be seen to be selling—that would be bad for appearance’s sake. “I’m doing you a favor,” Briger reportedly told him, “This is going to go so much higher, we don’t want to sell it ever.”"

  • Ethereum, early investor. Is said to have sold much of his stash over the years. A look into how his investment into Ethereum came to be can be read in this Decrypt article (16-11-2020):

"In late 2015, Vitalik Buterin sold half a million Ethereum to Mike Novogratz in an over-the-counter transaction. He sold each ETH for just $0.99. He said that he met up with college roommate Joseph Lubin to discuss purchasing a 25% stake in his venture studio ConsenSys. But when buying a stake in ConsenSys became more complicated than Novogratz initially thought, he figured he should at least buy some Ethereum."

  • EOS, investor through his venture capital firm, Galaxy Digital
  • Investor in Bitgo, Combined, Goldman Sachs and Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital Ventures contributed about $15 million to BitGo’s Series B fundraising, which brought in a total of $57.5 million.
  • Michael Novogratz, bought $7.5M shares of his company for $4.8M; Novogratz now owns 79.3% of company shares. Galaxy saw a net loss of $76.65M in Q3 2018 which Novogratz described as the reality of building "a business in a bear market".
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