Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary Ready to Put 5% of His Portfolio in SEC-Approved Bitcoin ETF

Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, also known as Mr. Wonderful, is ready to put 5% of his investment portfolio in a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) that is approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Long known as a bitcoin skeptic, O’Leary is worried about bitcoin’s volatility and wants regulators to be comfortable with it before he jumps in.

Kevin O’Leary Wants to Invest in Bitcoin ETF

Canadian investor and television personality Kevin O’Leary discussed his view on bitcoin last week in a podcast hosted by Morgan Creek Digital partner Anthony Pompliano.

O’Leary has been a bitcoin skeptic. He told CNBC in May last year that bitcoin was “worthless” and “a useless currency,” stating that to him, “it’s garbage because you can’t get in and out of it in large amounts.”

While he still has the same concerns, the Shark Tank star said that he is not against bitcoin. “I do own a small amount of bitcoin,” he said, adding that he bought the BTC because a class he taught at Harvard University challenged him to get involved in cryptocurrency.

However, he is worried about bitcoin’s volatility and the regulators’ adverse response to it. “Every time I talk off the record to the regulators, because I talk to them all the time for various reasons, they’re a little squeamish on bitcoin, they are not quite there yet,” he cautioned.

O’Leary added, “When I can get this thing regulated so that I can put millions of dollars into it and know that I’m not off the side in any way. I’m not breaching anything … and it would be stable,” he affirmed:

If that was the case, if tomorrow morning we woke up and the SEC said you can create an ETF with bitcoin and we think bitcoin is a legitimate, you know, payment system and store of wealth, not only would it go up but you’d have a lot of people like me investing in it.

He elaborated that if that happens, “I’d say okay I’m going to give it a 5% weighting so you know I don’t really want a significant portion of my portfolio having that amount of volatility.” He said he prefers to invest in an ETF and many of his investments are in ETFs.

As an investor who believes in diversification, O’Leary reiterated that it bothers him “a little bit” that “in the crypto space you have to be very concentrated to get these returns in one cryptocurrency, bitcoin.”