Franklin Bi — General Partner · Pantera Capital

Franklin has spent 10 years building and investing in crypto. Since joining Pantera in 2019, Franklin has led investments across DeFi, infrastructure, and web3 gaming. He serves on the boards of Pintu (Indonesian crypto exchange), Mezo (Bitcoin Layer 2 network), InfiniGods (web3 mobile gaming studio), Helika (on-chain analytics platform), Rarimo Labs (privacy-first identity protocol), and MakersPlace (premier NFT marketplace), and has worked closely with teams like Alchemy (blockchain developer platform), Offchain Labs (developers of Arbitrum), and Cega (DeFi derivatives protocol).

When multiple crises struck the crypto industry in 2023, Franklin assembled our war room to help steer our portfolio teams through the storm. One of his key roles at Pantera is leading our portfolio development team and building out our founder platform, which partners with our 300+ founders on their critical needs across growth, talent, research, and governance.

Prior to joining Pantera, Franklin was a founding member of JPMorgan’s blockchain team, now known as Onyx. He led the firm’s earliest blockchain research efforts in 2014 and shaped early product strategy across digital assets, payments, and asset tokenization. During that time, the bank partnered with organizations like zCash (a Pantera portfolio company) and Consensys on projects that have since evolved into industry-leading platforms, such as JPM Coin, Quorum (acquired by Consensys), and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.

In 2018, Franklin co-founded Scale8 Partners, a blockchain-focused venture studio partnering with early-stage founders across the crypto ecosystem, including DeFi protocols, exchanges, and infrastructure projects. He began his venture career in 2011 at ff Venture Capital, one of New York’s best-performing early-stage VC funds. His other career highlights include: lifeguarding for NYC’s largest public pool, designing text-based MMORPG’s, and assembling computers for Wharton professors to pay for school. Franklin is a graduate of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, with a B.S. in Economics.