Kevin O’Leary says he is buying new cryptocurrency positions for the next market cycle and believes the biggest signal for the industry will be a major stock exchange adopting blockchain technology.
Speaking to The Block’s Gareth Jenkinson at the Avalanche Summit in New York, the O’Leary Ventures chairman said investors were entering a new phase in which the key question would be which blockchain achieves widespread use, and in which sector.
“I’m back in the saddle buying new positions, putting my bets on for this next cycle,” O’Leary said.
He added that he had been speaking to chief executives across a range of industries about the blockchain platforms they were considering. However, he said there was no clear consensus among them.
“I can talk to CEOs in different industries about which blockchains they’re looking at, but none of them are saying the same thing,” he said.
O’Leary identified the decision by the first major exchange to adopt a blockchain as a potential turning point for the sector.
He said that move would be a “watershed moment”, as the wider financial system would then seek to use the same blockchain while meeting the requirements set by the exchange.
O’Leary also discussed the recent setback for the Clarity Act, saying he believed cryptocurrency regulation would return to the political agenda. He pointed to lawmakers’ efforts to establish tax policy for digital assets as a reason for expecting further regulatory debate.
“If you’re going to provide a tax policy on this asset, you want more regulation, not less,” he said.
Despite that expectation, O’Leary said he did not believe the Clarity Act would pass before the midterms.
On bitcoin, he said the cryptocurrency with the largest market capitalisation could eventually make up between 1% and 3% of alternative-asset allocations. He compared that potential share with the level of gold held by institutional investors.
O’Leary also outlined the focus of his investments in artificial intelligence, saying they were directed towards the power infrastructure needed to support the sector rather than AI models themselves.
Those projects include developments in Norway, Finland, Alberta and Utah. He said his investments also include uranium.
The comments came as O’Leary assesses which blockchain networks could secure broad adoption in the next phase of cryptocurrency investment, while monitoring the regulatory and institutional decisions that could influence the market.
