Kevin O’Leary turns away from NFT and put millions in rare physical collectibles, in particular high -end sports cards.
The star of “Shark Tank” and the president of O’Leary Ventures recently co-brought a double logoman card of $ 13 million featuring Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, he said in an interview with Jennifer Sanasie of Coindesk TV. The menu is unique of its kind, and O’Leary – often called “Mr. Wonderful” – considers him as an cornerstone of his growing “index” of unique collectibles.
“The majority of yields over 20 years have accumulated to collectors who bought the unique,” said O’Leary, comparing the strategy to its long -standing investments in Andy Warhol Art and Luxury watches. Rather than surpassing others, O’Leary has teamed up with two investors to acquire the card. “I prefer to have 33 and a third party than zero,” he said.
Pouring millions into rare sports cards is not a passionate project – it is a calculated bet. “It has been negotiated for $ 75,000 there are $ 75,000 and years, but that shows you the price appreciation,” said O’Leary.
“Adult men will cry when they see that,” he added.
Tokenization on nfts
Despite the overlap of the tokenization, O’Leary clearly indicated that he is not interested in the NFT.
“The NFTs have proven to be a fashion,” he said. “I only buy assets that are physical assets … that [NFT] Fashion went and came. I am very lucky that I did not get involved because I never understood it. “”
NFTS O’Leary’s net dismissal comes only a few years after the market has exploded in popularity. In 2021, the NFT market negotiation volume increased to $ 25 billion, compared to only $ 95 million the previous year, according to Dappradar and the Chainysis data. Celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton and Steph Curry rushed to launch collections, while major brands such as Nike, Adidas and Coca-Cola have entered space.
But the beaten media was short -lived. NFT sales volumes have dropped by more than 80% by mid-2022 in the middle of the slower crypto, and the prices of high-level collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club and Cryptopunks have changed their peaks, according to data.
The problem of O’Leary with NFTS is the lack of physical existence of assets. “Where is the asset? Where can I put my white glove and go touch it? This is what you can’t do with an NFT.”
However, he said that his collectibles “will one day be token”, because “it would be much easier to manage them and manage them in an index in this way”.
Wall Street in chain
O’Leary supervises this change as part of a larger mission: “Wall Street on Chain”.
He thinks that blockchain infrastructure can modernize asset management – improve transparency, liquidity and confidence in markets that always depend strongly on intermediaries.
It remains optimistic about fundamental cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the infrastructure plays like mining operators and exchanges.
