FTX poked the bear and the bear is pissed — O'Leary on the crypto crackdown

cointelegraph.com:

Shark Tank investor and venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary has urged crypto exchanges to “get on board with regulation” if they want to “stay out of the way” of Gary Gensler and the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC).

In a Feb. 20 interview with TraderTV Live, O’Leary said that U.S. lawmakers are “fatigued” over crypto collapses and that they’re only going to get more ruthless if companies continue to not comply:

“These senators are really fatigued, they’re really tired of gathering every six months when the next crypto company blows up and goes to zero,” he said, adding “because they’re totally unregulated and they keep issuing tokens that are worthless.”

Venture funding for new #crypto projects is virtually dead and aftermarket trading for existing projects is at massive discounts. Reason? The #regulator is now regulating by enforcement, penalties & massive fines. The venture community has moved on to the next “big” thing, #AI pic.twitter.com/ChpjYIY9Dl

O’Leary said the SEC whacking Kraken for $30 million and ordering them to immediately cease its staking services should put the industry on alert and to comply by all means.

In light of the recent regulatory crackdowns, the Shark Tank investor predicted that regulated trading platforms will be better investments than their unregulated counterparts over the next few years:

O’Leary recently confessed to losing basically 100% of the $15 million that FTX paid him to be its official spokesperson.

Related: ‘ There will be many more zeros’ — Kevin O'Leary on FTX-like collapses to come

Despite admitting FTX to be a “bad” investment, Mr. Wonderful has continued to defend former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, claiming that the controversial figure should be treated