Jordan Belfort, the former stockbroker known as 'The Wolf of Wall Street,' claims that he lost more than $300,000-worth of crypto in a hack last year, and that he moved all his assets from exchanges into cold storage.
Belfort, who is also notorious as a convicted financial criminal, went on Yahoo Finance Live last week to discuss, among other things, the fallout of the FTX collapse and crypto market sell-off.
Asked about how much he himself trusts crypto exchanges at this point, given that he has "skin in the game," Belfort suggested that it's none.
"So I got hacked, actually. I lost about, was it 300-and-something thousand dollars on [crypto wallet] MetaMask last year."
He did not specify how he got hacked, when exactly, how much in crypto was taken, or if there was (or is) any investigation into the matter.
That said, Belfort claimed that he no longer has any assets on exchanges, stating:
"I don't have any of my money in any crypto on exchanges. It's all off [...] in a cold storage wallet, so to speak, with [crypto wallet] Ledger."
He opined that this is "a very, very, very tough industry right now" because it's "literally like the Wild West."
The reason - as well as the solution - comes down to regulation, Belfort argued.
"[The industry is] in desperate need of regulation, desperate need of the SEC [US Securities and Exchange Comission] or some body to step in here and bring at least some level of order to the chaos. Even after they do that, there will still be fraud. There always is in every market."
Asked what he thought is needed for the industry to regain trust and limit fraud, Belfort suggested that the vast majority of cryptocurrencies, some 99.99% of them, should be regulated as securities.
"Bitcoin, I don't believe
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