Renowned TV personality and millionaire investor Kevin O’Leary said the Proof-of-Work(PoW) ban proposed by New York State would scare businesses away. According to the crypto bull, the state, along with California and Massachusetts, is uninvestable due to its poor management and unfriendly policies towards crypto businesses.
Meanwhile, he did not see Terra’s failure leading to a rejection of the stablecoin industry as a whole and stated that regulatory clarity is what the sector is needed.
“New York State is Uninvestible”
Last month, New York State Assembly passed a moratorium bill targeting carbon-based PoW mining sites. The bill is yet to be signed into the state’s law as the Senate has not voted on it.
In the latest interview with CNBC, Kevin O’Leary considered the antagonism towards crypto businesses a huge mistake. He said the state had failed to take advantage of its abundance in hydroelectricity – an alternative power source. He argued that many miners would prefer to utilize it over carbon energy.
“They can get a lot of taxes and good jobs out of this, and all they have done is to scare the capital away.”
The Canadian business used his personal experience to demonstrate his stance, noting that he had re-allocated his investments that would have landed in New York to Norway instead. He further noted that states such as California, Massachusetts, and New York are so “poorly managed” with unstable policies on digital assets that he would choose not to invest there at all.
Instead, he said he would invest in Florida and Texas because these states’ approaches have reflected his thesis that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies “won’t go away.”
On Terra’s Collapse
In the interview, the billionaire also commented on the recent collapse of Terra’s ecosystem, saying Terra is only a failed experiment project on stablecoins, and it does not “change the basic concept of what a stablecoin could be.”
In favor of stablecoins denominated to the US dollar, O’Leary compared the type of algorithmic stablecoins as “a form of entertainment” similar to “going to Las Vegas.” Thus, it should not cause concern regarding the whole stablecoin industry.
When explaining his pro-regulation stance on stablecoins, he added that regulatory clarity based on a set of policies would give businesses a framework of what to do with the asset, which would lead to healthy competition among different projects.