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
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.
Talking Regulation
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.
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.
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.
Own the Picks and Shovels
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.
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.
Building Your Crypto Portfolio
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.
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.
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.
Treasuries and Leverage
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.
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.
- Kevin O’Leary, Entrepreneur and Investor
Ask an Expert
Making Sense of Crypto Investment Models: What Access Means in Today’s Market
Q: What does “access” really mean in crypto investing—and why is it important?
A: Access refers to how an investor engages with the crypto ecosystem. In traditional markets, access is relatively uniform. Most investors use a brokerage account to buy stocks or ETFs. In crypto, the landscape is far more fragmented and dynamic. You can buy tokens on centralized exchanges, interact with decentralized protocols, invest in structured products, or allocate capital to professionally managed strategies.
Each access model comes with distinct implications around ownership, custody, execution, transparency, and risk. For example, holding tokens in a private wallet means you control your assets. However, it also requires technical know-how. On the other hand, managed accounts or index-like products offer simplicity and professional oversight, but often at the cost of reduced control.
Understanding your access model is foundational. It shapes your entire experience and exposure to digital assets.
Q: What strategy types are available besides just buying and holding tokens?
A: Beyond buy-and-hold, digital assets support a range of sophisticated strategies:
• Delta-Neutral: Balances long and short positions (e.g. spot vs. futures) to eliminate directional exposure. Focused on yield generation, these strategies typically experience minimal drawdowns, making them appealing for steady returns.
• Market-Neutral: Keeps net dollar exposure near zero by exploiting mispricings across assets. Methods such as statistical arbitrage, pairs trading, or baskets aim for uncorrelated returns, often with drawdowns of less than 10%.
• Long-Short Quantitative: Uses systematic signals such as momentum, mean reversion, or factor models to take directional bets. Designed for higher return targets, these strategies accept greater volatility and drawdowns in the 10–20% range.
• Smart Beta: Rules-based frameworks that replicate factor exposures such as momentum, value, or volatility. Often implemented through regulated futures, they provide scalable and transparent access to systematic styles commonly found in traditional finance.
Together, these approaches broaden investor options beyond passive exposure, enabling more precise control over portfolio risk, return, and diversification.
Q: How should someone choose the right approach to enter the crypto market?
A: Begin with your investment objectives: are you seeking long-term growth, diversification, income generation, or capital preservation? From there, assess both your risk tolerance and your preferred level of engagement.
- Hands-on investors comfortable with technology may consider direct token exposure or DeFi protocols.
- Allocators seeking structure and oversight may prefer managed strategies, where AI-driven portfolio construction, real-time risk analytics, and automated execution provide a data-driven alternative.
Infrastructure is equally critical, such as custody, liquidity, and transparency, which define the durability of any investment approach. For example, a non-custodial architecture combined with a real-time performance and risk dashboard helps ensure security, transparency, and control.
Today’s digital asset ecosystem encompasses a diverse range of participants, from high-conviction traders to passive investors. The key is not simply whether to engage, but how to engage — aligning your method of access with your objectives, while fully understanding the trade-offs. In this way, investors can participate intelligently, securely, and at scale.
- Leo Mindyuk, CEO & CIO, ML Tech
Keep Reading
- Visa, Stripe and Fold have partnered to launch a new bitcoin rewards credit card.
- The U.S Securities and Exchange Commission is paving the way for faster crypto ETF applications and fewer restrictions for listing.
- Morgan Stanley plans to launch crypto trading through its E*Trade platform.
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