Crypto For Advisors: Kevin O’leary Talks Crypto Strategy

What Happened

In today’s "Crypto for Advisors" newsletter, Kevin O’Leary, entrepreneur and investor, shares both his opinion and crypto investment thesis and how they’ve both changed over time.

Then, Leo Mindyuk, CEO of MLTech answers questions about how everyday investors can access these investments in "Ask an Expert."

Rethinking Crypto Investing: Looking Beyond Digital Assets

In the post-Wild West landscape, everyone’s looking for the next big event to drive price discovery. It’s obvious that institutional investment has this potential. Almost no major financial institutions, sovereign funds, etc., have adopted crypto. Any of these bodies weighting BTC at 1% would send price discovery to the moon. The roadblock is regulation.

The U.S. Senate’s digital asset market structure bill and the U.S. House’s clarity act are two upcoming pieces of regulation to watch; both create crypto regulation frameworks. Many investors anticipate a bullish market if this legislation passes and the regulatory trend continues. Current price levels of BTC are perhaps indicative of this anticipatory mindset: we’re waiting for the floodgates to open.

Specifically, I see exchanges and data centers booming in the case of broader, institutional adoption. I’m an investor in Bitzero, a data center company that provides clean energy for BTC mining. My investment there is a power play — it’s the cheapest power I’ve seen. They mine BTC at a low breakeven, allowing me to profit regardless of its volatility.

Exchanges are similar. I invested heavily in WonderFi, which became the largest in Canada. I’m also a Robinhood and Coinbase shareholder. Platforms like this are where price discovery occurs, and they earn per transaction.

Buying into this space today can range from an infrastructure play to a stablecoin. I own the currencies, exchanges and the energy powering them. Collectively, crypto-related investments are about 20% of my portfolio. I recommend building a diverse crypto portfolio, not through token variety but by investing in companies supporting digital assets.

Many of my other investments, like stocks and bonds, pay dividends or interest — I can see the income. That’s what my wrapping strategy replicates, while still acknowledging BTC as digital gold: the underlying point is long-term price appreciation. ETH, on the other hand, is where a lot of Wall Street’s stablecoins are trading.

The Crypto Investor’s Mindset

If there’s one thing to understand about crypto investing, it’s that volatility is baked in. Your mindset must be to take advantage of the volatility and productivity by owning both the crypto and its infrastructure: believe in the whole crypto space. This way, you’ll avoid predicting token prices and make money regardless.

Market Context

From Garbage to Gold: Why Crypto?In 2019, I made headlines by calling bitcoin “garbage”. Back then, there was no regulation or oversight. It was chaos. Governments were hostile and unsure how to approach crypto. Now, the landscape has changed entirely.

In the days before regulatory bodies started coming on board, crypto pioneers –cowboys–made tons of money on crypto’s early volatility. Even in this high-risk landscape, the crypto market proved incredibly productive.

Today, the market has grown to use bitcoin (BTC) and others as stores of value, digital payment systems or stablecoins. However, we’re still early — crypto adoption isn’t anywhere near its potential.

When considering crypto assets, it’s easy to overlook the infrastructure needed to scale institutional adoption. I’m very vocal about my “picks and shovels” strategy. If you’re in the crypto market, you should own its supporting infrastructure and tap into the returns associated with crypto without caring much about coin price.

Why It Matters

We’ve recently seen public companies’ treasuries buy BTC with massive leverage. I stay conservative. Call it boring, but I hardly leverage my coins: at most 30%. To me, it’s not worth the risk of getting burned if BTC drops 50% overnight.

Details

– Sarah Morton

Talking Regulation

Regulation began with bitcoin ETFs. First available in Canada, then the U.S. and Europe, they’re now Wall Street’s gateway to crypto. Another key regulation was the GENIUS Act in the United States, which guaranteed stablecoins against USD. Collectively, this legislation shows growing institutional faith in crypto.

Own the Picks and Shovels

Building Your Crypto Portfolio

Where Coins Belong

At one point I had 27 crypto positions. Now, I’m confident that I only need three: BTC, ether (ETH), and stablecoins. BTC and ETH are the gold standard, and together they’re around 90% of my coin holdings. I’m weighting each at 2.5% and wrapping ETH around my BTC, because I like a monthly yield.

Treasuries and Leverage