Kevin O’Leary to launch Web3 fund, becomes UAE citizen

Kevin O’Leary plans to launch a Web 3.0-focused investment fund called Cipher, the Shark Tank investor told Forkast Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau at the Converge22 blockchain and cryptocurrency conference on Wednesday in San Francisco. 

See related article: Capital gains: How Web3 property rights can transform the digital economy

Fast facts

• “We’ve got to get away from this speculative price of an asset here,” he told Lau. “We’ve got to find reasons that this [technology] gets embedded into the economy.”
• The Canadian entrepreneur said he recently became a citizen of the United Arab Emirates to “work freely” in a region that has attracted investment by some of crypto’s heaviest hitters, including exchanges FTX, Binance and Crypto.com.

• O’Leary is a vocal proponent of Web3 technology as a spokesperson for cryptocurrency exchange FTX and an investor in financial technology company Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin and the organiser of the Converge22 conference.
• Cryptocurrencies have yet to emerge from a prolonged market slump since the US$40 billion collapse of the Terra-LUNA token and stablecoin in May, an event that prompted regulators worldwide to focus on drawing up rules for the developing industry.
• “Now, remaining players are being strengthened by the fact they’re still in business,” O’Leary said. “They’re able to raise capital.”

See related article: Circle says customers could redeem all of USDC in one day