- Kevin O’Leary thinks the crypto market should be ready for another FTX-like collapse, noting this will 100% happen.
- According to the venture capitalist and “Shark Tank” star, crypto needs to move away from a “unregulated cowboy environment” that’s full of rogue players.
- The billionaire investor thinks the scenarios where an exchange goes burst will keep happening over and over until regulations begin to change some of the factors enabling the failures.
Kevin O’Leary, the Chairman of O’Leary Ventures and a seasoned investor, has shared his outlook on the crypto market, suggesting in a recent interview that the industry could yet see another major meltdown.
Particularly, the ‘Shark Tank’ star believes more unregulated cryptocurrency exchanges will fail, even as the regulatory landscape improves to put rogue players in check.
O’Leary says new exchange collapses 100% will happen
O’Leary came under heavy criticism in the aftermath of the collapse of FTX, with his role as a spokesperson attracting the ire of Crypto Twitter even as the FTX Token plummeted and he claimed he lost money on the exchange.
Now he says he can never buy any of these exchange tokens, and that platforms incentivising customers to buy tokens with offers of trading fee discounts are perpetuating a scheme that will see many people lose their money.
Asked whether he thinks there’s going to be another FTX, O’Leary noted there would. He told Kitco News anchor David Lin on Tuesday that it doesn’t worry him.
“I’m not worried, but if you’re asking me, will there be another meltdown to zero absolutely 100% it’ll happen, and it’ll keep happening over and over. All of these exchanges, all of the unregulated exchanges are having massive outflows now. The smart money has got the joke, they saw what happened with FTX and are not sitting around for an explanation.”
The venture capitalist went on to highlight that any exchanges not willing to be fully and properly audited – those that still don’t fancy transparency – will see an exodus of institutional capital. On such exchanges he said, the “unregulated cowboy environment” will end. And there are going to be many more collapses as the space matures under a robust regulatory framework.
“I think we just need to treat crypto like any other regulated asset,” he noted, adding that this is likely to happen sooner as more companies, including USD Coin stablecoin issuer Circle, pursue a proper regulatory environment.
