‘Shark Tank’ investor, Kevin O’Leary, has been dialling up the FUD, calling Bitcoin ‘garbage’ on CNBC’s Squawk Box. He felt the need to interject his comments during a segment discussing potential reasons for Bitcoin’s recent rally. Although it turned out his conclusion was based on a very small dataset.
A Normal Day Discussing Bitcoin On CNBC’s Squawk Box
O’Leary’s rant began following an interchange between two of the hosts. The female guest anchor suggested that investors moving money out of China using Bitcoin may have been one factor in the recent rally to $8000.
Co-anchor, Andrew Ross Sorkin chipped in, opining that “you hear people say they have a challenge to sometimes sell Bitcoin.” When questioned on this claim by the anchor, he modified it to only include selling Bitcoin ‘in volume’.
So far, so typical CNBC, other than the guest anchor going off message of course. But O’Leary felt he had something to add.
‘I Tried To Do Some Real Estate In Switzerland With It Once’
He went on to say that Bitcoin was “a useless currency,” in his opinion because “you can’t get in and out of it in large amounts.”
To back this up against those who say that ‘yes you can’, he explained that the receiver wants some guarantee. In his ‘hypothetical’ example, he outlined a situation whereby a seller of a $10 million piece of real-estate in Switzerland didn’t want to use the traditional transfer system.
Which he pointed out was illegal; but of course, this was just a ‘hypothetical’ example, and not his own experience at this point… “let’s just say.”
They want a guarantee that the value comes back to US currency at 10. You have to somehow hedge the risk of bitcoin. That means it’s not a real currency. It’s worthless. I believe that.
At which point we cut back to Ross Sorkin who added “Speaking truth.”
Bring On The Pomp
Later in the show Anthony Pompliano came on to explain why he is bullish on Bitcoin. At this point O’Leary showed himself up as an outdated and perhaps wilfully ignorant dinosaur.
Bitcoin tops $8,000@APompliano makes the case to @kevinolearytv on why he is bullish on Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/irQHUybfC6
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) May 14, 2019
He did however, disclose that he had invested in the space 18 months ago as a challenge with a class he taught at Harvard.
I bought all the crypto crap. I put $100 in. It’s now worth $30. That’s a 70% loss… People should understand today the hot digital is bitcoin. Tomorrow it could be whatever.
So he bought at the top, could potentially have sold at the bottom, and that’s somehow Bitcoin’s fault?
Well I certainly trust his investment advice. Just don’t tell him BTC/USD is up 720,000,000 percent since its first recorded price.
What do you think of O’Leary’s comments? Share your thoughts below!
Images via Shutterstock
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