FTX Paid Spox Kevin O’Leary Received $18M, Previously Called Bitcoin ‘Trash’
Media personality Kevin O’Leary testified Wednesday that the collapse of cryptocurrency firm FTX has a “silver lining,” that the industry is “culling its herd.
Kevin O’Leary, who served as a paid spokesperson for FTX, defended the benefits of cryptocurrency despite the company’s downfall during a Wednesday Senate hearing, but he wasn’t always a fan.
In a 2019 CNBC appearance, the investor known from “Shark Tank” railed against crypto, and Bitcoin in particular.
“It’s a useless currency,” he said. — To me, it’s rubbish, because you can’t get in and out of it in large quantities.
He illustrated this by giving an example of how he tried – and failed – to buy Swiss property with Bitcoin.
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“They want a guarantee that the value will return to the American currency,” he said. “You have to somehow hedge the risk of bitcoin. That means it’s not a real currency. That means the receiver isn’t willing to take the risk of the volatility that it has. It’s worthless.”
At the time, Bitcoin was valued at around $8,325.
Since then, O’Leary seems to have flipped on crypto. He acknowledged the change of heart during his opening remarks to the Senate Banking Committee.
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WASHINGTON, DC – DECEMBER 14: Investor and television personality Kevin O’Leary testifies during a hearing before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on December 14, 2022 on Capitol Hill in Washington, (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images/Getty Images)
“In 2017, I was a public critic and skeptic of crypto and blockchain technology. After observing the extraordinary advances in these technologies and seeing the amount of intellectual capital invested in them and the innovation they produced, I completely reversed my position,” he so. “I now believe that crypto, blockchain technology and digital payment systems will be the twelfth sector of the S&P within a decade.”
O’Leary discussed his personal losses from the FTX collapse. He said he received compensation worth $18 million, which included “approximately $10 million in tokens held in FTX wallets” and approximately $1 million in FTX equity.
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“The equity is now most likely worthless and the accounts have been stripped of their assets and financial records,” he said. “I’ve written them off to zero.”
Despite this, he insisted that the FTX collapse is not an indication of the benefits of cryptocurrency or the viability of the industry. He compared it to the falls of Enron and Lehman Brothers, arguing that neither had a long-term impact on their respective industries.
