Kevin O’Leary Says Tokenisation Hype Won’t Go Mainstream Without U.S. Crypto Laws

Businessman Kevin O’Leary recently said Wall Street’s tokenisation boom will remain mostly speculative, at least until the US government creates a clear federal crypto framework.

Speaking at Consensus Miami 2026, O’Leary said institutional indexers will not adopt tokenised products without rules that compliance departments can approve, and that’s what keeps most large institutions away from Bitcoin (BTC) and digital assets.

O’Leary’s point was not that tokenisation lacks technical promise, but that the legal framework still determines whether large financial institutions can deploy it at scale.

Compliance Blocks Adoption

His argument is that institutional demand does not become real until index providers, asset managers and risk committees can treat tokenised products as compliant financial instruments.

That is why he linked tokenisation adoption to the same regulatory problem that has limited broader institutional crypto participation. In other words, large financial firms may be interested in blockchain rails… but interest does not translate into mainstream allocation when there’s no clear status regarding asset legality.

The same logic applies to Bitcoin. For instance, O’Leary said many large investors still view Bitcoin as outside the mainstream, despite its size and the growth of spot ETF infrastructure, because policy risk remains central to their investment process.

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US regulators have begun moving without Congress. The CFTC said it joined an SEC interpretation clarifying how federal securities laws apply to certain crypto assets and transactions.

Paul Atkins, SEC Chairman, confirmed there are possible exemptions, including a startup exemption of up to four years and a fundraising exemption that could allow up to US$75 million (AU$104.3 million) in any 12-month period.

Atkins has said only Congress can future-proof crypto regulation through comprehensive market-structure law. That puts the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act at the center of the debate.

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