Kevin O’Leary, star of Shark Tank, also known as Mr. Wonderful, warned about regulations being tough on bitcoin. In addition, he says that “even if bitcoin went up another 2,000%, it would be completely irrelevant for institutional customers”.
Kevin O’Leary warns of brutal bitcoin regulation, says bitcoin is not an institutional product
Canadian investor and television personality Kevin O’Leary spoke about bitcoin in an interview on Thursday with CNBC’s Squawk box.
O’Leary was asked if he had changed his mind about bitcoin from thinking “it wasn’t a real currency” to invest in it and possibly buy more. “Let me be clear … I’ve been a kryptonian for years,” replied the Shark Tank star.
Pulling out his phone, he said, “here’s my bitcoin wallet. At that time, all you got was ethereum, XRP, bitcoin, litecoin, star lumen and bitcoin [cash]. I bought this in the last craze. I put $ 100 to work here. This morning is worth $ 52.77 because not all cryptocurrencies are the same, clearly. ”He elaborated:
I am involved in this because it is fun, but it is not an institutional product … This whole market, even if bitcoin went up another 2,000%, is completely irrelevant to institutional customers.
Reiterating that he owns bitcoin, O’Leary noted: “I hang out with him on the weekends”, but emphasized that “you can’t put that in a fiduciary product … it’s irrelevant to the financial markets”.
He clarified that “The real problem is if you get involved in this as a fiduciary, and it is regulated, and it is cut in half or goes to zero, who knows what, you have never seen the mother of the collective lawsuits that are coming from that. “
O’Leary was asked to comment on how the Dallas Mavericks, the professional basketball team of his colleague Shark Tank, Mark Cuban, recently started offering discounts on merchandise to customers who pay with bitcoin. “This is another arena … where you can see the legitimacy of bitcoin from people like Mark Cuban, his friend, who is trying to make it a more relevant part of people’s lives,” said the CNBC host. Cuban also recently said that bitcoin was more of a religion than a solution to anything.
“I know Mark very well, he was also quoted as saying he thinks bananas are a bigger common currency and he is probably right,” said O’Leary, adding:
My goal is for all of us … who monitor and work in the multi-trillion dollar global financial services industry, is that a hamburger for nothing? It is not even a single cell amoeba.
Investor Shark Tank went on to detail that “Financial markets deal with regulators, and you can only operate within the limits of these rules, and therefore, when we glorify something like that [bitcoin], it really has nothing to do with the financial markets that make the world work. And no institutional sovereign wealth investor I ever talked to told me to index all cryptocurrencies for me. “
Affirming that the institutional investors he spoke with do not want to own bitcoin because “they fear the regulator”, O’Leary warned:
See what happens one day and I’m waiting for this one. I’m looking forward to the day when one of these regulators stomps on bitcoin. Adult men will cry when that happens. You will never see a capital loss like that in your life. It will be brutal. And, I’m just saying that you have to prepare for that.
Meanwhile, an increasing number of institutional investors are investing in bitcoin. Bitgo said recently that it is seeing “unprecedented institutional interest” and Skybridge Capital has launched a bitcoin fund, expecting an “avalanche of institutional investors”. More banks have also started offering cryptographic services to institutional customers, such as Standard Chartered Bank. In terms of regulation, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) recently proposed new rules that affect cryptocurrency portfolios.
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