Kevin O'Leary Predicts Crypto Will Be 12th Sector Of S&P 500 In The 'Next Few Years'

"Shark Tank" star and renowned investor Kevin O’Leary has predicted the cryptocurrency industry — which includes Bitcoin BTC/USD, Ethereum ETH/USD and Dogecoin DOGE/USD — will become the 12th sector of the S&P 500 Index (SPX) in the next few years.

What Happened: O’Leary, chairman of O’Shares ETFs, made the comments on Twitter.

Crypto is going to become the 12th sector of the S&P 500. It’s going to happen over the next few years, watch.

— Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) February 23, 2022

The S&P 500 Index is a stock market index that tracks the performance of the top 500 publicly-traded companies listed on stock exchanges in the U.S.

The index — maintained by S&P Dow Jones Indices — currently sorts the publicly-traded companies into 11 sectors based on their primary business activity.

See Also: How To Buy Bitcoin (BTC)

Why It Matters: O’Leary’s comments assume significance as he has displayed mixed feelings toward the cryptocurrency industry over the years.

The Canadian investing star had called Bitcoin “garbage” in an interview with CNBC published in May 2019 but revealed last year that 10% of his operating company’s holdings are made up of digital tokens including Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The businessman had also likened investing in Dogecoin to gambling and said the meme cryptocurrency has no inherent value.

In January, O’Leary predicted non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — one of the hottest cryptocurrency trends since last year — could become a bigger market than Bitcoin in the future.

Price Action: Thursday morning at publication, Bitcoin is down 6.97% during the past 24 hours, trading at $35,974.85; Dogecoin is down 11.94% during the period to $0.1179; and Ethereum is down 9.34% at $2,441.23.

Read Next: 10 Great Quotes From Charlie Munger On Life, Investing And Cryptocurrency

Photo: Courtesy Shark Tank