National Basketball Association’s Shaquille O’Neal said he likes to dabble into a stable investment when asked about his thoughts on crypto in a recent interview.
Shaquille O’Neal, a basketball legend turned business mogul, has agreed to disagree with the crypto community. The 49-year-old NBA Hall of Famer highlighted his dissatisfaction with the financial system’s decentralization.
Shaq presented a solid point in an interview with Front Office Sports, saying that he only invests in things he passionately believes in and prefers to preserve plausible financial stability by avoiding initiatives that “seem too good to be true.”
“I always get these companies that say, ‘Hey, we’ll give you $900,000 in crypto to send out a tweet.’ So I have to say, ’OK, if you’re going to give me a million dollars worth of crypto, then why do you need me?’” O’Neal said. “A couple of my friends got caught up in a little scam like that one time.”, he added.
Shaq sought to avoid offending anyone by skirting around any harsh criticisms of the crypto industry. Rather, he focused on establishing a nice life for his family, in contrast to most retired athletes, who are left with little to nothing due to the nature of their employment.
O’Neal has once dipped his toes in cold water and does not want to be put in another predicament that he would regret. Shaq told the story of his bad investment in an interview in 2019.
He mentioned an unnamed paper company that advertised shady bargains but turned out to be a rip-off and O’Neal’s worst investment.
“A guy who owned this paper company said he had all these deals in all the schools and with the government. … Turned out to be a scam,”, O’Neal told CNBC
“When I first came into [the business industry], I lost a lot of money in the ‘get rich quick schemes…from [age] 19 to 26, anybody could come to my office, tell me the deal and I would take it right away. No research. No due diligence.”, O’Neal added.
Shaq, on the other hand, learned from his financial misfortune and began investing in respectable organizations and projects.
O’Neal now has a net worth of $400 million and is adamant about never investing another dime, be it in a paper firm or digital currency.