'Shark Tank' star Kevin O'Leary expects a major capitulation event that will flush the bad actors out of crypto

• Kevin O'Leary is expecting a major panic event that will trigger another crypto crash.
• Major firms like Celsius Network and Voyager Digital have already collapsed as the industry suffers a liquidity crunch.

"Shark Tank" star investor Kevin O'Leary believes the crypto crash won't end anytime soon.

O'Leary said in a recent interview that he's expecting a major capitulation event that will trigger further bitcoin sell-offs - even though the token has already plunged 56.5% year-to-date.

"You're going to see a whole series of actors crushed to zero over the next few months," the high-profile venture capitalist said on an episode of the "Meet Kevin" podcast that was released on July 6.

Crypto has suffered a liquidity crisis in recent months, with firms like Celsius Network, Three Arrows Capital, and Voyager Digital all collapsing. Many have struggled to repay bitcoin-backed loans as the token has dropped in value.

O'Leary said that an even larger player will likely fail soon.

"Voyager is too small, it doesn't matter. The rest of these guys were kind of irrelevant in terms of total market cap," he said. "There's no big guy who has gone to zero yet, and I think that's still to come."

But that sort of capitulation event could actually be beneficial for digital assets in the long-term, O'Leary said. He's hoping the current rout will flush bad businesses and over-leveraged investors out of the crypto space.

"That would be very healthy for the market," O'Leary said. "It educates the business models that aren't going to work."

"It's like taking a big spatula from the sky and scraping all the crap out of the market," he added.

The investor said he is loading up on safer tokens during the current downturn. He added that the collapse of 3AC and Voyager shows investors that they shouldn't be buying riskier crypto products, such as Binance's 4x leverage tokens.

"I like a big, big panic event," he said. "It's towel-throwing, it's capitulation, it's massive volume, it's total panic in the streets and always a great buying opportunity."

"But I have zero leverage in any of my positions, because I know that I could wake up tomorrow down 38% in any token, any coin, or any project," O'Leary added. "If you put on leverage, you'll learn a very important lesson — you'll go to zero."

O'Leary is a longtime crypto backer who currently holds 32 positions in the digital asset market. He's previously said that he intends to "buy the dip" in both bitcoin and ether.

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