Kevin O’Leary: The U.S. Needs to Change Its Attitude on Crypto Regulation

Kevin O’Leary of “Shark Tank” fame is worried about how the U.S. government is dealing with crypto regulation. He says the federal government is less concerned about policy and more concerned with taking fast action, and this is coming back to hurt innovation.

Kevin O’Leary: All the U.S. Needs is Policy

Right now, he says policy is all the U.S. needs when it comes to crypto. He commented that the government doesn’t need to do anything fancy or special. It just needs to implement the right rules to ensure the industry is safe and sound for all. O’Leary stated:

I’m not looking for the federal government to provide innovation. I’m looking for them to provide policy. We don’t need them to develop anything. What we’ll do is license multiple stable coins, all backed by the U.S. dollar, and let them compete in the market.

He also said he thinks it’s very important that more action be taken to ensure all crypto companies are running on clean energy. This is an attitude he’s held for quite some time, going so far as to say a few years back that he would cease buying any crypto mined in China given the country’s poor history with renewable energy (this was long before the country outlawed crypto and mining activity).

O’Leary was adamant that if crypto companies continued to walk the path that they’ve been walking over the past several years, the planet is going to suffer heavily. He mentioned:

We have to listen to these people and realize we can’t mine coins using carbon offsets. We’ve got to go hydro; we’ve got to go nuclear. I am so glad I had to sell every share I had in a company that uses carbon offsets, because I see the writing on the wall and it’s not pretty.

O’Leary isn’t the only person that has this attitude. Over the years, several reports have been written and published suggesting that crypto mining now utilizes more energy than most third-world or developing countries. In addition, big names like Elon Musk – the billionaire and South African entrepreneur behind companies like SpaceX and Tesla – have chimed in about crypto’s energy usage.

Musk’s Attitude Towards Mining

Not long ago, Musk made it clear he wanted Tesla customers to be able to buy vehicles with bitcoin. This caused the price of the asset to shoot up, and everyone thought BTC was going to reach a new level of mainstream legitimacy.

However, it was not to be, as just a few weeks after that, Musk rescinded the decision, claiming he was concerned about how much energy was being used to extract BTC from the blockchain and that he would only allow bitcoin-based purchases if miners were more transparent about their sources and used cleaner energy.

Tags: Crypto Mining, Kevin O’Leary, regulation