Kevin O’Leary, chairman of O’Leary Ventures, said the crypto industry isn’t regulated enough — which is holding digital assets back from true institutional adoption.
Speaking at Consensus 2025 in Toronto on Thursday, O’Leary said crypto assets under management (AUM) have hit a wall, which he attributed to a lack of regulatory clarity that has prevented the majority of sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and institutional investors from investing meaningfully.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I want more regulation and I want it now,” O’Leary said. “The good news is there’s a new sheriff in town: Paul Atkins at the [U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission].”
O’Leary said Atkins, who was sworn in as chairman of the SEC last month, has already telegraphed that he’s friendly to the crypto industry and will “regulate accordingly.”
Atkins replaces Gary Gensler, whose penchant for so-called “regulation by enforcement” drew the ire of many in the crypto industry. O’Leary said Thursday that he respected Gensler’s consistency as a regulator.
“He said he was gonna sue you, and he sued you,” O’Leary said. “He was consistent and you have to respect that.”
In a press conference ahead of his keynote speech, O’Leary said he’d received a Wells notice from the SEC over a decade ago after speaking about debt tokenization in a televised interview. He was cleared, he said, but the experience temporarily scared him off engaging with crypto in the U.S.
“My first experience with crypto was over a decade ago, when I was on business cable, talking about debt tokenization,” O’Leary said. “I get a knock on my door and it’s an enforcement agent from the SEC serving me a Wells notice. I shit my pants … The regulator was sending a message. I got the message”
Since Gensler departed the agency in January, the SEC has done an about-face on its approach to crypto regulation, creating a Crypto Task Force spearheaded by crypto-friendly Commissioner Hester Peirce and dropping a host of open investigations and lawsuits against crypto companies that were started under Gensler.
A friendlier SEC isn’t the only thing O’Leary is hopeful for when it comes to crypto regulation — he expects to see the passage of the GENIUS Act within “months.”
“The minute that happens, it will signal the move to the next act, the market infrastructure act,” O’Leary said. “And when that is determined and regulated, Katy, bar the doors — a trillion dollars will come in and index [bitcoin].”
