Shark Kevin O’Leary: Only Bitcoin and Ethereum are enough to attract institutional capital

Kevin O’Leary states that he currently controls approximately 26,000 acres of land to develop low-cost infrastructure, ready to connect utilities for bitcoin mining operations as well as future AI data centers and cloud computing facilities. After completing licensing procedures, these lands will be leased back to businesses to implement their projects.

According to O’Leary, new electrical and infrastructure contracts are real assets, even more important than tokens. He predicts that about half of the data centers announced recently will never be built. Regarding institutional cash flow, he believes major institutions are only truly interested in Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The famous Shark Tank investor also emphasizes that widespread acceptance of crypto by organizations heavily depends on the US legal framework, especially regulations allowing stablecoin accounts to earn yields. Currently, about 19% of his investment portfolio is allocated to crypto-related assets and infrastructure.

In an interview with CoinDesk, O’Leary affirms that infrastructure will be the future of both crypto and artificial intelligence, and he is heavily betting on this trend. The total land area of 26,000 acres under his control spans multiple regions, including 13,000 acres in Alberta, Canada, previously announced, and another 13,000 acres at undisclosed locations, currently in the licensing process.

O’Leary states that crypto-related investments now account for over 19% of his portfolio, including digital assets, infrastructure, and land. Previously, he invested in the Bitcoin mining company BitZero in Norway and views bitcoin mining operations as a “real estate play,” since both mining and data centers require large land plots and abundant power from the early stages.

However, O’Leary has no intention of building data centers himself. His strategy is to buy land, secure access to electricity and infrastructure, then lease it to companies to develop their projects.

“My task is not necessarily to build data centers,” O’Leary says. “It’s to prepare everything in a ready-to-build state, from land to permits.”

He believes that without owning land from the start, most of the data center projects announced in the past three years would not materialize. He estimates that about half of them “will never be built,” as the wave of interest in this field resembles a land grab driven by ignorance of actual requirements.

The lands owned by O’Leary are being prepared to serve high energy-consuming infrastructure, initially for bitcoin mining, and in the long term for hyperscalers and government data centers. These sites are fully equipped with utilities such as electricity, water, fiber optic cables, and air rights, ready for leasing once permits are obtained.

Notably, O’Leary claims that electrical contracts at some locations—especially those with prices below 6 cents/kWh—are worth more than bitcoin. He argues that this makes infrastructure more important than tokens in the long run.

Regarding the overall crypto market, O’Leary is increasingly skeptical of most projects. He states that institutional capital is focused only on two core assets: bitcoin and ether. While newly launched crypto ETFs may attract more retail investors, he believes they are almost meaningless for large institutions.

“In the context of asset allocation in the financial market, crypto ETFs are insignificant,” he says, criticizing smaller coins. According to O’Leary, holding only bitcoin and ethereum covers about 97.2% of the volatility of the entire crypto market since its inception.

On the legal front, O’Leary considers this a key factor in attracting major financial institutions. He is closely monitoring the draft legislation on crypto market structure in the US Senate but criticizes the clause banning interest payments on stablecoin accounts, arguing that this regulation creates an unfair advantage for traditional banks and is the reason Coinbase withdrew support for the bill.

“That’s an uneven playing field,” O’Leary says. “As long as stablecoins are not allowed to pay interest to users, this bill will be very difficult to pass.”

Nevertheless, he remains optimistic that the bill will be reasonably amended, paving the way for a large-scale institutional capital influx into bitcoin.