dailyhodl.com
Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary is casting doubt on the ability of Bitcoin (BTC) to rally above the $25,000 price level under the prevailing conditions.
O’Leary says in a Stansberry Research interview that the price of Bitcoin is stagnating because the lack of cryptocurrency regulation is hindering institutional investment in the space.
“We want policy, particularly those of us that work in financial services because we think it unlocks the power of institutional investors’ interest in crypto. So we need the policy to get there.
I’m going to predict that crypto and particularly Bitcoin will be locked between $20,000 and $25,000 until we get policy. It’s not going to go anywhere because there’s not enough buyers. You need to tap trillions of dollars being managed by sovereign wealth, and they are not going to buy Bitcoin until there’s regulation.”
Bitcoin is trading at $20,210 at the time of writing, down nearly 20% from its high this month of $25,200.
According to O’Leary, crypto cannot be deemed as a bonafide asset class without regulatory framework.
“Crypto is not yet a real asset class because it hasn’t been regulated yet. So for all the excitement about it, and one of the reasons I’m long… is that I believe over the next two to three years we will get regulation. And then finally we can get institutional participation.
People forget that 70% of the world’s wealth is tied up in pension and sovereign wealth funds. And so if they are not allowed to buy the asset class, there’s no underlying bid.
And that’s one of the reasons we can’t get crypto past $24,000. It’s really hard because there’s not really a large constituency that’s permitted to buy it yet, particularly Bitcoin and Ethereum.”