Celebrity investor Kevin O'Leary says he will only buy bitcoin mined sustainably in countries that use clean energy — and not "blood coin" mined in China.
"I see over the next year or two, two kinds of coin," he told CNBC's "Capital Connection" on Monday. "Blood coin from China, (and) clean coin mined sustainably in countries that use hydroelectricity, not coal."
Bitcoin mining is extremely energy intensive, and around 65% of the world's bitcoin was mined in China as of April 2020, according to Statista.
"I'm going on the side of clean coin," said O'Leary.
O'Leary did not elaborate on where he acquires "clean" bitcoin, but some countries use hydroelectric power more widely than others, and there are entities that claim to mine cryptocurrencies in a sustainable way.
The chairman of O'Shares ETFs once called bitcoin "garbage," but changed his mind more recently and said he would allocate 3% of his personal portfolio to the cryptocurrency, according to a CoinDesk report.
O'Leary said he was "inundated" by institutions asking if he was buying "blood coin from China" after he said he wanted to invest in bitcoin.