Dan Dao's Portfolios on Autopilot: DAT Strat, Hyper AInvestor, and Lord of the Returns

I'm Chris, one of the co-founders of Autopilot. Dan Dao writes Portfolio descriptions with a lot of energy.

I'm going to skip the adjectives and describe the machinery, because the machinery is what you'd actually be following. And all three of Dan's Portfolios share one piece of it that you need to understand first.

One thing first, because we're an SEC-registered investment adviser and I have to say it. Autopilot is the app. The actual investment advice comes from Autopilot Advisers, LLC. If you want the full legal version of anything in here, it's on our disclaimer page.

1) The piece all three share

Dan Dao is an independent Pilot who creates and manages all three Portfolios.

Each of them can use leveraged ETFs. For those unaware, those are funds built to return a multiple of an index's daily move. They generally reset every day, which means over longer stretches they can lose value even when the market ends up where you expected. The SEC and FINRA have both warned about this.

The descriptions frame leverage as something Dan deploys when a trend lines up. That's a timing call, and timing calls are where leverage hurts most when they're wrong.

2) The cash that isn't cash

Two of the three, DAT Strat and Lord of the Returns, replace ordinary cash with what the descriptions call a cash proxy: a yield-paying preferred stock issued by Strategy, the company best known for holding bitcoin as a corporate treasury.

I want to be honest with you. That's not cash. It's a security tied to a bitcoin company, and it can fall in value. When these Portfolios step back from risk, they're stepping into that, not into a savings account. Know that before you treat the defensive side as solid ground.

3) DAT Strat

Built around digital asset treasury companies, the public companies whose main strategy is holding crypto on their balance sheets. The description says it combines those companies with leveraged ETFs and the preferred-stock cash proxy, uses systematic profit-taking, and rotates toward the cash proxy when it wants less risk.

The mechanics of treasury companies, and why they can fall harder than the crypto they hold, are in Is there an app that follows Bitcoin treasury companies for me?.

4) Hyper AInvestor

An AI-infrastructure Portfolio. The description says it filters for companies with strong moats, rising spending from the largest cloud providers, and real free cash flow, focused on chips, power grid bottlenecks, and embedded enterprise software.

Then it adds leverage when trend momentum lines up, and cuts risk on technical breakdowns, per the description. So it's a stock-picking Portfolio with a trading overlay on top.

5) Lord of the Returns

The highest-conviction picks, per the description, built from Dan's own technical research, with leveraged ETFs when judged appropriate and the preferred-stock cash proxy in place of cash. It's concentrated by design.

6) The risk, said plainly

Leverage, concentration, crypto exposure, and a cash proxy tied to bitcoin. Those stack. In a bad stretch, several of them can go wrong at the same time.

No position-sizing rule caps a loss. It limits how much you put at risk. The market decides the rest. Read each description in the app, look hard at the worst stretch in each record, and size these as speculative positions.

7) How following works

Pick a Portfolio, connect the brokerage you already use, and allocate money. You give Autopilot Advisers limited authority to send orders to the account you already have. When the Portfolio changes, we send them and your broker fills them. The money stays put.

A flat cash subscription, not a percentage of your balance. Per our Form CRS dated February 2026, Basic Tier has no Base Advisory and Licensing Fee, and Premium Tier is $29.99 to $199.99 a quarter or $99.99 to $699.99 a year. Pilot subscriptions are separate and add on for each Pilot you subscribe to. Because it's a flat dollar amount, it's a bigger share of a small account than a big one, so do the math at your balance.

TLDR: Dan Dao runs three Portfolios, a crypto treasury one, an AI infrastructure one, and a high-conviction one. All three can use leveraged ETFs, and two use a bitcoin-linked preferred stock in place of cash. Treat every one of them as speculative.

Frequently asked questions

Dan Dao portfolio

Dan Dao publishes three Portfolios on Autopilot: DAT Strat, built around digital asset treasury companies; Hyper AInvestor, an AI infrastructure Portfolio with a trading overlay; and Lord of the Returns, Dan's highest-conviction picks. All three can use leveraged ETFs.

Dan Dao Autopilot

Dan Dao is an independent Pilot on Autopilot who creates and manages these Portfolios. Followers hold them in the brokerage accounts they already have. Two of them use a bitcoin-linked preferred stock in place of cash.

How can I follow Dan Dao's portfolio in my own brokerage?

Pick one of Dan's Portfolios in the app, connect your brokerage, and allocate money. When the Portfolio changes, Autopilot Advisers sends the orders and your broker fills them. Size them as speculative positions.

Start Investing

Since Autopilot Advisers is an SEC-registered investment adviser, we have to put disclaimers on stuff like this. They're below, and the full version is on our disclaimer page.

Disclosures

© Autopilot Holdings Corporation 2026 — All rights reserved. “Autopilot” refers to Autopilot Holdings Corporation and its wholly-owned, and separately managed subsidiaries, including Autopilot Advisers, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. All investing is subject to investment risks, including possible loss of the principal invested, and past performance is not indicative of future results. View our Customer Relationship Summary and other important information at joinautopilot.com/disclaimer.

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Leveraged exchange-traded funds are complex products that generally reset daily and can lose value over time, including when the market moves in the direction anticipated; they may not be suitable for most investors. Securities used as a cash substitute, including preferred stock of companies holding digital assets, are not cash and can lose value. Strategies linked to digital assets carry extreme volatility and risk of substantial loss. Listing is not an endorsement of a Pilot or strategy. Fee amounts are quoted from Form CRS dated February 2026 and may change.