Shark Tank star investor Kevin O’Leary is weighing on the potential road map toward a formal definition of terms and regulations within the crypto space.
In a recent roundtable discussion with Crypto Banter, O’Leary suggests that if the Republicans end up winning a majority in Congress during the November elections, crypto is likely to achieve formal recognition by next spring.
“By second quarter 2023 after the midterms, if the House flips. You get the Republicans on this, they’re more they’re way more pro-crypto.
Most of the bill initiatives are coming out of red states. I don’t want to be political, but if you get the house flipping, they’ll put that on the agenda.
Don’t expect every token to be regulated. They’re going to focus on the market capitalization and say, ‘Here’s policy on Bitcoin, here’s policy on Ethereum.’”
The venture capitalist believes that investors might consider diving in after the results of the midterm elections are known, and also explains why he is in favor of the government regulating the crypto industry.
“I think you want to be long after November 8th. Everybody’s got to speculate on what to do here, but you’ve seen the winter at the bottoms [and] we’re slowly crawling out of the toilet here.
Your portfolios are up 20%, in some cases 23%. Our 20% position went down to 15.2%. That’s pain, my friends.
Our desk was saying, ‘What do we do?’ I said, ‘We do nothing.’ We know we’re in this volatile asset class and we’re going to have to wait for some policy.
That’s why whenever I talk about crypto now, I’m pro-regulation. I want the sovereigns backing me up with a bid every night.”
O’Leary goes on to speculate that high-powered sovereign wealth funds in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) might be waiting for regulatory clarity from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) before moving on crypto.
“When you look at UAE, Abu Dhabi is 95% of the capital, so you have to operate out of there. It’s called the ADGM [Abu Dhabi Global Market]. They set policy on crypto. They grant licenses for exchanges.
But here’s the thing that they won’t do. They will not jump-hop the SEC. They will not do this and make it a standard for their own sovereign wealth before the SEC gets a chance to move.
The reason for that is really political in nature. The largest manager of sovereign wealth in the world is BlackRock. That’s Larry Fink. He’s not going to do this until he gets the go-ahead from the SEC.
So they’re not going to ever mess around with their largest manager. I’m speculating, I don’t know this for certain.”
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