‘Shark Tank’ host and renowned investor Kevin O’Leary revealed a major investment in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space.
What Happened: During a recent episode of Anthony Pompliano’s ‘The Pomp Podcast,’ O’Leary said that he is a “large shareholder” in a company called DeFi Ventures and that he plans to use DeFi to lend out assets in exchange for yield, with a target rate of 4.5 to 8% per year.
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“Imagine if I could have had a 5% yield on my gold over these years, that would have been incredible. Well, I can on my crypto so that’s really what I’m doing in DeFi and I think I’ve got the best team in North America,” he explained.
O'Leary also added that he intends to increase his exposure to cryptocurrencies to up to 10% of his whole portfolio.
He recently revealed that he had allocated 3% of his investments to Bitcoin.
He also led a $20 million funding round for DeFi Ventures — a firm focusing on aggregating DeFi services — and is willing to rename it to WonderFi, as a hint to his "Mr. Wonderful" nickname on investment-themed tv show Shark Tank.
The Canadian investing star claimed that he was working with major corporate DeFi actors and opened accounts to allocate up to 5% of his company's balance sheets into yield farming strategies.
See also: Dirty Bitcoin Vs. Virgin Bitcoin: Why Kevin O'Leary Is Buying New Cryptocurrency
He said that DeFi's "potential is huge" and pointed to anyone joining now holding the advantage of being an early adopter.
“You’ve got less than 1% of global corporations even thinking about crypto right now.”
Pompliano suggested he should leave the funds that he earns through his DeFi activities in cryptocurrency instead of converting it into fiat money, saying that "once you leave fiat for crypto, you don’t go back."
“I don’t want to go back. Why would I?” O'Leary replied.