Kevin O’Leary told CNBC on Thursday that bitcoin is irrelevant to financial markets and too at risk of regulations to be taken seriously by institutional investors.
“Is this a nothing burger? It’s not even a single cell amoeba,” the O’Shares chairman said,
“I love to talk about it, it’s fun to watch it go up and down, but during the day, when the bell rings, I don’t talk to anybody that’s worried about this. They do not put capital to work in bitcoin.”
His comments come as more institutional players are piling in, validating bitcoin’s legitimacy as a store of value and hedge against inflation. Earlier this week, SkyBridge Capital invested $25 million into a new bitcoin fund, while last month, Guggenheim filed to reserve the right for 10% of its $5.3 billion Macro Opportunities Fund to invest in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.
O’Leary said that the concept of a digital currency will likely come to fruition in the future, but investors should be careful glorifying bitcoin while it has yet to fulfill a defined role in financial markets and while it could still be regulated. This year, bitcoin has skyrocketed over 200%, and many crypto bulls are forecasting an explosion of growth in 2021.
Though regulations could be coming for the popular token. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is proposing new rules that would require certain cryptocurrency traders to provide more information about their identities and cryptocurrency transactions. This doesn’t appear to have scared off various institutional investors, but O’Leary, who said he has $52.77 in a crypto wallet, is more worried.
“I’m waiting for the day that one of these regulators comes down hard on bitcoin. Grown men are going to weep when that happens. You’ll never see a loss of capital like that ever in your life. It will be brutal,” he said.
O’Leary added: “This whole market, even if Bitcoin were to go up, another 2000% is completely irrelevant to the institutional client.”
