Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary says a new crypto exchange is coming that will take business away from the industry’s leading giants. In a new interview with Fox Business, the venture capitalist says the days of the “crypto cowboy” are long gone. O’Leary says that a new firm based in Abu Dhabi called M2 will […]
The post Kevin O’Leary Says New Crypto Exchange Will Compete With Binance, Become the Largest Ever To Be Regulated appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, has warned that U.S. crypto regulation is “getting very, very aggressive.” Noting that regulators are now “regulating by enforcement, penalties, and massive fines,” O’Leary emphasized the importance of staying out of the way of the SEC, Chair Gary Gensler, and other regulators. Kevin O’Leary Shares Outlook for […]
Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, says that most crypto tokens are worthless and they will eventually drop to zero in value. He added that he now owns seven cryptocurrencies and he is getting the same volatility he did when he owned 32 crypto tokens prior to the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. […]
The Shark Tank star said all unregulated exchanges are seeing “massive outflows” right now, and rightly so.
Unregulated crypto exchanges will continue to fall like dominoes post-FTX, with plenty more “meltdowns” to come, warns Shark Tank star and investor Kevin O’Leary.
O’Leary, a former spokesperson and proponent for the now-bankrupt FTX exchange, told Kitco anchor David Lin in a Jan. 17 interview that the collapse was just one in a long line of “unregulated exchanges” likely to fail:
“If you’re asking me if there’s going to be another meltdown to zero? Absolutely. 100% it’ll happen, and it’ll keep happening over, and over and over again.”
Unregulated exchanges are those that aren't subject to regular auditing, aren’t registered and regulated by a securities commission, and don’t operate under rules similar to traditional stock exchanges and brokerages.
“Well, all of these exchanges, all the unregulated exchanges are having massive outflows right now. Smart money has got the joke. They saw what happened at FTX and they’re not sitting around for an explanation,” he said.
The Shark Tank star then made a stark warning to so-called “unregulated” crypto exchanges.
“If you're not willing to be audited, [...] you don't have an audit, you don't want to be transparent, you don't want to disclose ownership, why should institutional capital stay? Of course, it's not going to.”
The collapse of FTX in November prompted fierce calls from the community for greater transparency from crypto exchanges. Within weeks, five centralized exchanges completed their proof-of-reserve audits, while plenty more announced plans to do the same.
However, some observers, including a senior official from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), warned that proof of reserves don’t paint a true picture of a company’s financial position and asked investors to be “very wary” of the claims being made.
Some of the auditors, such as Mazars have seemingly back-flipped on their support for crypto companies. In December, the company removed its audit for crypto exchange Binance and reportedly stopped doing proof-of-reserve audits for crypto companies altogether.
Other auditing firms such as FTX’s auditor Armanino have also reportedly stopped working with crypto exchanges like OKX and Gate.io. O'Leary commented:
“Frankly, you know, it's very hard to find an auditor that wants to touch this stuff right now because of the unregulated cowboy environment. It's all going to end and yes, there’ll be many more zeros.”
Earlier this month, O’Leary’s fellow Shark Tank host Mark Cuban told The Street that crypto wash trading on centralized exchanges will be the cause of the next crypto “implosion.”
As much as 70% of the volume on unregulated exchanges is wash trading according to a December report by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
Related: Binance 'put FTX out of business' — Kevin O'Leary
Despite the noise, O’Leary says he’s doubling down on his crypto investments, particularly in Bitcoin (BTC).
“I have been going back into crypto markets lately. Any time Bitcoin drops below $17,000 I add to our positions there.”
“Crypto is getting very interesting because we’re finally starting to see the bearer of regulation coming into play and I think long-term that’s a good thing,” he added.
Mark Cuban, a Shark Tank star and the owner of the NBA team Dallas Mavericks, has warned that the next crypto implosion could come from “the discovery and removal of wash trades” on centralized exchanges. The billionaire’s comments followed the collapse of crypto exchange FTX which wiped out billions of dollars of customer funds. Mark […]
Kevin O’Leary fessed up to making a massive mistake with FTX, and is working to find out where his money went amid the bankruptcy.
Shark Tank star and investor Kevin O’Leary, known in some circles as Mr. Wonderful, has claimed he has all but lost the $15 million FTX paid him to be its official spokesperson.
Speaking at CNBC’s Squawk Box on Dec. 8, O’Leary outlined that after taxes, agents fees, a $1 equity investment into FTX, and buying a whole lot of crypto that's now stuck on the FTX exchange, he's got nothing left to show for his time with FTX.
“Total deal was just under $15 million, [...] I put about $9.7 million into crypto. I think that’s what I’ve lost. It's all at zero, I don’t know cos my account got scraped a couple of weeks ago. All the data, all the coins, everything.”
“It was not a good investment [...] I don’t make good investments all the time, luckily I make more good ones than bad ones, but that was a bad one,” he added.
He will probably be just fine without the funds however, as the 68-year-old is estimated to have a net worth of around $400 million — if such estimates are anything to go by.
Mr. Wonderful was also questioned on what initially drove him to jump on the FTX bandwagon back in August 2021, given that he previously indicated that he held back from crypto in its early days due to his own rigorous compliance standards.
In response, he essentially fessed up to making a massive error, noting “I obviously know all the institutional investors in this deal, we all look like idiots, let's put that on the table.”
“We relied on each other’s due diligence but we also relied on another investment theme that I felt drove a lot of interest in FTX. Sam Bankman-Fried is an American, his parents are American compliance lawyers. There were no other American large exchanges to invest in if you wanted to invest in infrastructure plays,” he said.
O’Leary reiterated that he is currently working to find out where his capital on FTX actually went and how he can get it back. He also added that he has “agreed” to testify at the upcoming Senate Committee hearing set for Dec. 14.
Related: Sam Bankman-Fried misses deadline to respond to testimony request, now what?
Despite the whole debacle, O'Leary has previously said he would still have SBF on his team, and in an tweet on Dec.8, he reiterated that he is not scared off investing in entrepreneurs that have massive failures as “failure is often the best teacher.”
You invested in a fraud - not an entrepreneur
— sassal.eth (@sassal0x) December 9, 2022
During another interview with Yahoo Finance on Dec. 6, O’Leary stated that SBF should be treated as innocent until proven guilty as he called for FTX to be audited in the wake of its collapse.
“I am of the ilk and of the group of people that says, ‘You’re innocent until proven guilty.’ That’s what I believe. And I want the facts. And so, if you tell me that you didn’t — you did or didn’t do something, I’m going to believe you until I find out it’s a falsehood,” he said.
Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, has investments in FTX. Following the collapse of the crypto exchange, he said it’s a turning point for the industry, emphasizing that the “crypto bottom is in.” He is now pushing for crypto regulation. “What I’m going to be doing is I’m going to fly to Washington […]
Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban says the recent crypto market cataclysm triggered by the collapse of FTX has more to do with banking failures than crypto itself. The Shark Tank investor tells his 8.8 million Twitter followers that FTX’s insolvency is no different from past crises in the traditional financial world. “These blowups have not been […]
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Venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary is predicting that an upcoming meeting of world leaders will put crypto in the limelight. In a new interview, the Shark Tank investor says that digital assets will be one of the top issues that will be tackled during the World Economic Forum annual meeting that will take place in Davos, […]
The post Shark Tank Star Kevin O’Leary Says Crypto Holders Will Witness Something ‘Remarkable’ in January 2023 appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, expects the price of bitcoin to go up when the Stablecoin Transparency Act passes, which he believes could be soon after the November midterm elections. O’Leary emphasized that crypto cannot be stopped, stating: “You either join the wave or get lost.” ‘Regulations Come, Bitcoin Goes Up’ Shark […]