Miami Beach, FL – Kevin O’Leary says Wall Street’s tokenization boom is mostly hype until Congress finally gives the crypto industry the regulations it’s been waiting for.
“Tokenization will never be adopted by institutional indexers. Neither will bitcoin, which is still a fringe asset for the big guys,” O’Leary said at Consensus in Miami, arguing that major investors still see most digital assets as uninvestable without clear federal regulation.
Speaking at Consensus Miami 2026, the investor and “Shark Tank” personality argued that regulatory uncertainty still prevents large financial firms from fully embracing blockchain-based assets.
He said the tipping point will come only when the United States establishes a formal legal framework for digital assets. “It has to become globally compatible within [Securities and Exchange Commission] with actual passage of a bill,” he said. “When that happens, it will change everything.”
The comments come as Wall Street firms increasingly experiment with tokenization — the process of turning assets like stocks, bonds or funds into blockchain-based digital tokens that can be traded continuously and settled instantly. Proponents argue that the technology could modernize financial infrastructure by reducing settlement times and lowering costs.
But O’Leary said institutions still need legal certainty before committing significant capital.
He pointed to stablecoins as an example of how regulation can accelerate adoption. Referring to recent US legislative efforts, O’Leary said stablecoins were adopted “almost immediately” when politicians passed the GENIUS Act.
“Instead of wasting three days, we trade in minutes at a fraction of the cost with full compliance and transparency,” he said, describing cross-border payments using stablecoins.
O’Leary also argued that institutional investors have sharply narrowed their focus on crypto markets. “97% of the entire value of the entire market is simply BTC and ether (ETH),” he said, adding that many smaller tokens have been “slaughtered.”
He described a growing gap between speculative cryptoassets and blockchain infrastructure with real business adoption.
The biggest long-term opportunity remains to find a blockchain platform that large companies standardize for applications such as logistics, contract management or warehouse systems, according to O’Leary.
“You show me the adoption on the platform that becomes a moat,” he said.
The investor also tied the future of blockchain and artificial intelligence to infrastructure more broadly, arguing that energy and data centers may ultimately prove more valuable than the digital assets themselves.
“Power is more valuable than bitcoin,” O’Leary said.
