At the Consensus 2025, Kevin O’Leary, the chairman of O’Leary Ventures, opened up about why crypto has been stuck in limbo: unclear regulations. He explained that without clear rules, huge players like pension funds and sovereign wealth funds are sitting on the sidelines, hesitant to invest seriously in digital assets.
Kevin also shared his experience with the US SEC as he recalled how he was hit with a Wells Notice for discussing debt tokenization. This had kept him away from the SEC for a while.
However, with Gensler’s exit, the SEC has now taken a 180-degree turn, dropping many of the crypto cases that were started under Gensler.
Kevin Calls For Clearer Regulations
He shared that clearer regulations are now more important than ever. The sentiment has changed with the appointment of the new SEC Chair, Paul Atkins, and the “new sheriff in town” has already displayed a more crypto-friendly approach. This will make it easier to draft more supportive regulations for the crypto space.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I want more regulation and I want it now,” O’Leary said.
Kevin also believes that stablecoin legislation in the U.S. will eventually pass, helping digital payments grow. This will kickstart the next wave of crypto regulations, including the Market Infrastructure Act. Once the right regulations are in place, the big institutional investors will finally enter the crypto market, bringing in massive amounts of capital, especially into Bitcoin.
Kevin Is A Big Shareholder in HBAR
What grabbed viewers’ attention is that Kevin revealed he is a big shareholder in HBAR. He is also optimistic about projects like ETH and Avalanche and sees them more as a diversification. Once the tokens are designated as securities or commodities, he expects a large influx of capital into the top 5 tokens.
He had also revealed about his investments in a range of cryptos, including Hedera, Solana, and Polygon, along with a mix of other technologies that have strong real-world use cases.
Wrapping it up, Kevin said that crypto will become a key part of the economy within five years as it makes cross-border payments easier and cheaper.
