Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary says that the recent arrest of the suspected developer of coin mixing service Tornado Cash is a worthy sacrifice on the road to a more regulated crypto industry.
In a panel discussion on Crypto Banter, the venture capitalist says that Tornado Cash and similar services are part of a “crypto cowboy” culture that he feels doesn’t have a place in the industry.
According to O’Leary, if crypto bulls want big money to flow into the digital asset space, a more rules-based environment needs to be cultivated, which includes clamping down on services like Tornado Cash.
“At the end of the day, it’s okay to arrest that guy. Why? He’s messing with the primal forces of regulation. Maybe he feels he’s a crypto cowboy, but he just got a whole bunch of arrows in his back. If we have to sacrifice him, that’s okay, because we want to have some stability in that institutional capital. That’s what we’ve been saying…
And I think we’re getting to that stage now. Maybe we’re in the third or fourth inning towards that, but I’m tired of this crypto cowboy crap. I want to get involved in a regulated place where we can bring billions of dollars to work. I don’t need to be a crypto cowboy, and I don’t want to be one because I work in the regulated world. I’m tired of that narrative.
Now when you go to Bitcoin 2022 and certainly 2023, the first day they had to open up… just for institutional interest even though none of them owned any Bitcoin. They had 1,500 institutions at the keynote there. I mean it was unbelievable the interest, but they’re not going to touch it while the crypto cowboys are riding the fence. We got to get rid of this crap.”
Last week, the suspected developer of the open source, Ethereum-based mixing service was arrested in The Netherlands as Dutch authorities claimed that over $7 billion has moved through Tornado Cash since its inception with $1 billion of it being linked to criminal activity.
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