This Shark Tank Fame Entrepreneur accuses CZ of Crashing FTX

Kevin O'Leary, star of the ABC show "Shark Tank," has criticized Binance, claiming (1) that it intentionally caused the FTX cryptocurrency to collapse.

During a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, famous Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary criticized Binance, alleging that the collapse of FTX resulted from a "conflict" between the exchange and Binance.

Kevin O'Leary testified that BINANCE and FTX were "at battle with each other, and one put the other out of business purposefully," with the former emerging as a "huge uncontrolled worldwide monopoly," and 'They drove FTX out of business.'

The serious accusation is based on a Twitter fight between crypto exchange CEOs Sam Bankman-Fried & Changpeng Zhao, or CZ. Binance obtained FTT tokens from FTX when CZ sold its shares in the company last year, and on November 6, CZ indicated that Binance would sell all of those tokens.

Information Was Kept From Regulators by CZ

O'Leary made it clear in the hearing that he believes Changpeng Zhao ran Binance in an illegal way and that Zhao had no plans to change. O'Leary claims that CZ frequently failed to deliver the information requested by regulators, making it impossible for his company to obtain required regulatory permits.

As per Sam Bankman-Fried, he withheld it, O'Leary testified, and Bankman-Fried confirmed this during cross-examination.

Given that Binance was an investor, and given that Binance's name was discussed by authorities "every time" FTX filed for regulatory permits all around the globe, O'Leary stated Bankman-Fried had told him that this became a problem for FTX.

Despite Recent Setbacks, the Crypto Business Still has Potential

O'Leary continued, "it does not change this industry's promise," even though he and many others had lost money in the FTX collapse.

Finally, O'Leary stated, "We can't let its failure cause us to forgo the immense promise and potential of crypto." This was his last statement during his testimony.

The comments were given at a Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing into the FTX collapse and allegations of fraud.

O'Leary as a Paid spokesman for FTX

According to the rumors circulating online, FTX paid Kevin O'Leary $15 million to be their official mouthpiece. But during his latest CNBC appearance, he came clean about losing nearly all of the money when the exchange crashed.

Many people, including CZ, have brought out the connection between Kevin O'Leary and FTX. The $15 million FTX paid to O'Leary "not only changed [his] thinking about crypto, but also made him align with a scammer," as CZ tweeted on Friday last week.

O'Leary's harsh statements against the well-known investor and TV personality came after he had suggested on television, as he did at yesterday's hearing, that it was Binance and the perceived necessity by FTX to purchase back shares originally owned by Binance that eventually brought down the company.

When O'Leary questioned Bankman-Fried about the whereabouts of the funds, the latter revealed that "one of the greatest uses of cash was the repurchase of shares from Binance," which held 20% of his exchange.