Kevin O’Leary, the host of Shark Tank and a cryptocurrency enthusiast, has rarely held back from expressing his honest opinions on anything. He received criticism from the community in the middle of December 2022 as a result of his comments against Binance. O’Leary ascribed responsibility for the demise of FTX to Binance. Then, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao referred to him as a liar.
But, on Friday, the Shark Tank presenter tweeted that unless rules are applied with force, cryptocurrency exchanges will continue “going to ZERO.”
Regulators have become even more cautious since FTX’s downfall. Several enforcement measures have been implemented in recent weeks. For instance, Kraken recently consented to pay $30 million to resolve an SEC investigation and stop its “staking” business in the United States.
The New York Department of Financial Services issued a directive to Paxos to cease issuing the Binance USD stablecoin. In addition, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission [ASIC] recently said that it is examining Binance’s domestic derivatives business in a “targeted review.”
Here’s How Cryptocurrency World Reacted
Others in the group continued by stating that it was crucial for investors to perform “due diligence” prior to investing in “honeypots” like FTX. Here, it’s important to keep in mind that Kevin O’Leary served as one of FTX’s spokespersons. The $15 million that the exchange had paid him to be its spokesperson was lost to him as a result of the collapse. He persisted in supporting SBF in spite of that.
One cryptocurrency enthusiast responded to O’Leary’s most recent post by saying,
“Your opinion on anything regarding cryptocurrency should be taken with a pinch of salt. Especially after endorsing FTX!“
Yet another cryptocurrency enthusiast said,
“People lost billions listening to your crypto advice. Leave it to the pros and stay in your lane. PS: you are literally the voice of regulatory capture and every tweet loses you more respect.”
“Cryptomom,” another steadfast member of the community, rejected O’Leary’s assertions that exchanges had reached zero. She said,
“Coinbase, Crypto.com, Kucoin, Binance aren’t going to zero like FTX did. And we don’t need old money coming to tell us how to run Crypto. We got this!”
The Shark Tank presenter has, of course, already expressed his opinions on exchanges. O’Leary warned that uncontrolled exchanges would keep collapsing one after the other in an interview with Kitco NEWS in January. He issued a warning about probable future meltdowns by saying,
“If you’re asking me if there’s going to be another meltdown to zero? Absolutely. One hundred percent it’ll happen, and it’ll keep happening over, and over and over again.”