Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary says he has maxed out his crypto portfolio by making big bets on a slew of different types of altcoins and Ethereum (ETH) challengers.
In a new interview on the Scott Melker podcast, the investor says that he came to a realization that digital assets are more software than currency, prompting him to make allocations into a wide range of altcoins.
O’Leary highlights smart contract platform Solana (SOL), Ethereum scaling solution Polygon (MATIC), highspeed cryptocurrency network Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR), decentralized exchange (DEX) Serum (SRM), and Internet of Things-focused network Helium (HNT) as some of his favorite projects.
“I believe [crypto] is going to become the 12th sector of the economy at some point. It’s going to take 10 years or whatever, but I look at it and say to myself it’s all software innovation. Bitcoin is not a coin, it’s software…
So I look at it and say I should have a lot of bets, I’m very fortunate [that] I meet all these development teams all over the world and I can invest in them privately. I just put a big whack of cash at Polygon…HBAR, I’m in there, Solana, Serum, Helium, I mean I got 32 positions.”
Given that as of now, most blockchains aren’t able to scale to worldwide adoption without additional technology, O’Leary says that high-throughput chains like Solana and layer-2 solutions like Polygon have massive potential.
“That’s where you start to make a bet on Solana, where you can get a 100x productivity…
At this point, I really start to think about this as financial services productivity so in a way I’m doing a lot of private equity in it.
When I invest in a private position in Polygon, it’s a long-term investment thinking that’s going to be a way to reduce gas fees on Ethereum which I think it is. So for me, these are innovations worth investing in.”
