Kevin O’Leary, also known as Mr. Wonderful, has admitted to buying bitcoin.
During an interview with CNBC last week, the Shark Tank star, president of O’Shares ETFs & Beanstox and CNBC contributor said:
“I am fascinated. I’m investing. I’m holding a 3% weighting in it between ethereum and bitcoin. The volatility sickens me but I’m getting used to it”.
O’Leary has been very sceptical about bitcoin in the past, but apparently he has now changed his mind.
In fact, he also said that he believes digital currencies are here to stay, and that most of their owners are willing to hold on to them over the medium to long term, including institutional investors who have bought them in the last 90 days, to the point where they are willing to deal with volatility.
Kevin O’Leary has changed his mind about Bitcoin
Up until a few months ago, O’Leary called cryptocurrencies “garbage”, or a “giant nothing burger”, but now he doesn’t think they are just a passing fad.
Indeed, he even went so far as to say:
“I’m starting to think about how do I invest in the infrastructure of mining bitcoin”.
On the subject of volatility, he said that he considers the decision on what percentage of the portfolio to allocate to be crucial, and that he thinks 5% should be the maximum.
Anthony Pompliano, who has been trying to convince O’Leary to invest in BTC for years, responded to O’Leary’s words by saying that he believes O’Leary will probably eventually decide to increase the percentage of BTC in his portfolio, perhaps even to 50%.
O’Leary did not deny this, and indeed responded by saying that if the scenario were to change, he too would be ready to do so.
It is possible that the turnaround also depends on the likelihood that the SEC will finally approve an ETF on bitcoin. In fact, this probability now seems much less remote than in the past, and O’Leary himself had previously stated that if an ETF on bitcoin was approved he would be willing to invest 5% of his portfolio in it.
In other words, he has already demonstrated with facts that he is prepared to change his mind if the conditions and scenario of the ecosystem revolving around Bitcoin change.
