Canadian entrepreneur and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary believes crypto cowboys will soon become a thing of the past, as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) casts a legal lasso around two of the industry’s most preeminent firms.
In an interview with Decrypt, O’Leary said the SEC’s back-to-back lawsuits against cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Coinbase—unveiled this week—will be remembered as an inflection point within the industry, ultimately leading today’s Wild West notion of crypto toward greener pastures.
“I think as an industry, we’re going to leave the past behind, and we’re going to find a new future,” O’Leary said. “There’s so much that this technology offers, and yet it remains mired in an unregulated, rogue-cowboy environment.”
O’Leary said the uptick in regulatory scrutiny that the digital assets industry has confronted following the collapse of FTX is a good thing, explaining that he’s tired of crypto being cast in a negative light, in headlines and on Capitol Hill.
O’Leary was an investor in FTX and served as a spokesperson for the exchange. He’s also one of several defendants named in a class-action lawsuit against celebrities that promoted Sam Bankman-Fried’s now-defunct crypto empire, such as Tom Brady, Larry David, and Shaquille O’Neal.
“In the context of FTX, I do a lot of investing in startups,” O’Leary said, adding he doesn’t agree with claims laid out in the lawsuit. “I have great lawyers […] but I’ll let the courts decide.”
Go to Source to See Full Article
Author: André Beganski
Tip BTC Newswire with Cryptocurrency