Kevin O’Leary, the popular Shark Tank investor and well-known crypto optimist, is convinced that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) would be much larger than Bitcoin. O’Leary, who is chairman of O’Shares Investment Advisers, said in an interview that the NFT trend in the coming years will favor the fluid market, compared to property taxes and insurance policies. The Canadian TV personality’s comments marked a sea change in his stance as he had previously quoted that no crypto asset stood a chance against Bitcoin.
“You’ll see a lot of movement in the coming years in real estate authentication and insurance policies and real estate transfer taxes, all online, potentially making NFTs a much larger, more fluid market than just Bitcoin,” O’Leary said in an interview with CNBC. He also added that he is “investing on both sides of that equation,” regardless of which comes out on top.
O’Leary noted that he is confident in the growth of NFTs because they allow people to prove real-world ownership of real estate. With more and more companies jumping on the hype train, NFTs have become the preferred options for many people compared to physical records.
O’Leary has not always been a crypto supporter. He has previously stated that Bitcoin is “garbage”. In 2019, O’Leary said of Bitcoin, “It’s a useless currency, it’s worthless.” However, in the past year, O’Leary has made a big move into cryptocurrencies, noting that these assets can be used for investment diversification. He has also shown support for decentralized finance (DeFi), noting that it is a replica of the traditional blockchain-based financial system.
O’Leary also stated that he also personally invests in cryptocurrency. He has revealed that the majority of his crypto portfolio is in Ether, while he also owns other tokens such as Bitcoin, Solana and Polygon.
In 2020, not many people had heard of NFTs, but in 2021 it became a phenomenon. According to the decentralized application (dApps) discovery and analysis platform DappRadar’s Industry Report for 2021, NFT trading volume for the year exceeded $23 billion (about Rs. 1,71,297 crore) as celebrities, sports teams and big brands entered the market. Marketplaces such as OpenSea, Atomic Market, and Solanart were among the most popular dApps.
Compared to 2020 figures, the DappRadar report points out that NFTs grew 230 times in sales volume in 2021, from just $100 million (approximately Rs. 744.94 crore).
However, there are concerns about the sustainability of the market. So far, some experts have compared NFTs to the enthusiasm of the first coin offering in 2017. Some investors have been fooled into betting on startups through unregulated token sales. In the meantime, there have been many cases of fraud and stolen art, indicating danger for some traders.
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