Labubus, Stablecoins, TikTok: Investment Opportunities to be Found Everywhere

The Genius Act passed the US Senate with strong bipartisan support, 68 to 30, and now heads to the House.

Trump is urging lawmakers to pass it without changing, calling it critical for US competitiveness in digital finance.

Congressional Republicans are trying to fast track the bill by mid-July and are hoping to pair it with the Clarity Act, which would establish a clear regulatory framework for crypto.

Slim GOP majority in the House Democratic support will be key moving these bills forward.

Well joining me on this Friday morning is none other than Kevin O'Leary, chairman of O'Leary Ventures.

Kevin, good morning.

Great to be with you, and thank you so much for joining us on this Friday.

So I know that you've said that crypto will be the 12th sector of the economy.

So what do you think needs to happen in the US when it comes to regulation?

Well, first of all, we have to pass this bill.

It's the first step.

We've been waiting virtually years for this.

So you know, when Trump talks about bringing the bill clean to his desk, I don't think it's a good idea to attach anything to it.

The Infrastructure Act, which determines, you know, whether Bitcoin is a commodity or securities, is a different debate.

What we're trying to pass here is a brand new and regulated digital payment system backed by the US dollar.

This is crucial because.

If you think about global trade, currency trade, commodity trade, price discovery, oil, gas, everything is priced in gold in US dollars, and this is a chance now to take the US dollar and digitize it so that it becomes a way of transferring.

Any, any kind of pricing anywhere anytime.

And so if you're in an economy like Venezuela or Turkey where you have massive volatility in the value of your currency, you could hold currency in the stablecoin backed by the US Treasury.

And so it solves so many problems.

That's why I'm not a fan of attaching anything to it.

Let's get this thing signed and then bring the Infrastructure Act as a separate momentum later.

Yeah, and Kevin, you might be hearing activity behind me as we approach the market open here at the New York Stock Exchange, but earlier this month there was a lot of excitement as we saw Circle go public, and you mentioned USCC, and I understand you hold.

A 19% weighting in crypto as well as related equities including direct exposure and stakes in major exchanges, and I understand that for yield you prefer USDC over bank deposits.

So can you break down your crypto strategy?

Sure, in full disclosure, I was an early shareholder of years ago of Circle.

I met Jeremy Alera quite a while ago.

I had a belief in his vision.

I liked the fact that it was in Boston, you know, my hometown, or, you know, where my kids grew up, so I'm very familiar with.

The whole fintech initiative in that market around Harvard and MIT, and you know, no one believed him.

Nobody believed him when he started this up.

Nobody said it could happen and look what's what's occurred.

It's been one of the best outcomes for me this year in our portfolio of holdings.

I think the stock is $200 now and I think it's just the beginning, but you know the whole idea of think about the value of USDC and tether, frankly, I mean together they own over 90% market share.

I prefer USDC as a shareholder, but they have to buy Treasury bills under 92 day duration.

They're already collectively the 6th largest buyer of Treasury bills worldwide, and so the demand for Treasury bills comes from every person that buys USDC or tether all around the world.

So they're going to become slowly the largest holder of Treasury bills.

It solves a big problem for us for the Treasury demand and backs the US dollar in a very stable way.

But even better for entrepreneurs is if you have USDC and you want to buy something.

You can do the transaction with almost no friction and virtually minimus fees, and so there's a lot of opportunity here and I think in terms of a crypto strategy for me it's a core holding, but I also have Bitcoin and Ethereum and many others, and you're right, including my holdings in the exchanges, wonder if I just got bought by Robin Hood, so I'm a shareholder of Robin Hood.

I'm a shareholder of Coinbase. you know, Wondery was a Canadian exchange.

It's now you've got a behemoth in Robin Hood that has accounts on both sides of the border.

With USDC they could transfer capital back and forth.

There's just so much going on, but we need regulations.

So I'm very happy that this administration is focused on this policy finally, and congratulations to Senator Haggerty, who really worked his tail off to get this genius Act, the stablecoin Act.

Through and you know, he's done it and a lot of people were very skeptical about it when he started the journey almost 3 years ago.

Yeah, and Kevin, of course we'll keep an eye on progress in our nation's capital, but while we have you here, I do have to ask you about something else that is making headlines, and that is la boo boos, and I'm talking about the plushies that are popping up all over the place.

So from therapists to armchair psychologists, a lot of theories floating out there about why they are taking the world by storm this summer.

So is this the summer of crypto?

Is it the summer of lobubu?

It's the summer of crypto and Lebubu, and I have to admit I have a lobubu hanging off my man bag, and so I got it on the set of Shark Tank.

And everybody wants Milabubu.

I had no idea how popular these things are, but it really speaks to another trend that's occurring out there.

I don't know if you're watching the value of collectibles, including baseball cards and sports cards.

They are one of the best performing asset classes in the world right now.

And so you've got these auctions coming up for collectibles like the boboo, like trading cards, like sports cards, and I have to for the first time started to consider allocation.

In terms of a broader portfolio, the collectibles.

So you know this is an area if you and these cards are not inexpensive, they're auctioning for $3 to $6.07 $8 million.

So think of it as almost modern art or contemporary art in a very small format, but it's asset appreciation you care about.

And I think the opportunity would be somehow to put them in a diversified portfolio no different than crypto or no different than my gold holdings, but now that you brought it up, it's, it's a, it's a conversation I've been having almost every day with my team.

We are looking at collectibles now.

Yeah, and Kevin, there's actually a popmart that is close to the New York Stock Exchange at the World Trade Center mall, so not sure when the next drop is for Lebubu, but we have that video that was posted to your Instagram of your own customized labubus, including that shark tank Lebubu with the shark actually inhaling that labubu.

You mentioned a very important point when it comes to collectibles.

I actually have a little FOMO, so I don't have my own labubu, but I'm carrying around this, and I might put it on my own bag.

But what do you think about tokenization of different types of assets because that's been around there.

But what about programmable real world assets?

What do you think of those?

I think it's a great idea for diversification.

I mean, let's say a good example would be on a collectible.

If you're going to buy a card for 6 $7.08 million dollars, you have to form a syndicate in some cases, or you want other owners because very often in collectibility you want diversification.

So if I could get tokenized ownership of a group of let's say 50 different cards or 100 cards, I would have diversification of the portfolio.

And I think that's the opportunity we need the regulatory environment to allow for unaccredited investors or non-accredited investors to own these tokens because credited investors can, but if I only want to invest $500 or $1000 in a $6 million card, I mean tokenization would be perfect for that, and I think that's coming tokenization of securities would be a great idea for diversification.

And just like this genius act, hopefully we'll get to the president's desk soon.

I think we'd like to get some guidance from regulators on how tokenization could be applied.

Yeah, and while we have you here, I understand that you're wrapping up filming for the upcoming season of Shark Tank.

So I do want to ask you about that.

Last season you told me about the wellness craze and how people want to live longer, perhaps forever.

So what's different this year and what are some trends that you're noticing?

Well, again, the trend continued, and we just finished taping the first big block of it.

A tremendous amount of healthy foods growing at 30%, 40%, 50%, a quarter.

People are really into longevity and health, and so I can't disclose what they were, but these companies were growing like weeds, and I, and what I realized is Shark Tank is always two years ahead of the economy.

And so what we saw in the technologies and the foods and the snacking. are all what's coming in the future and, you know, really interesting ideas about proteins and snack foods, you know, if there's a remarkable wave.

Sweeping through America, people are concerned about what they eat, and we saw it in the deal flow, and we also saw some really interesting technology.

AI creeped into the story this year on Shark Tank, some incredible new products and services.

I mean, just the most, and some of them came from products that were, are blowing up in Asia and are being brought to the US.

I mean, it's a global phenomenon in Shark Tank now, it's on in 54 countries.

So, I have never seen deals like this, and the other fact venture capital has dried up.

It reminds me of 2008, 2009.

Very large companies with real sales coming into the Shark Tank.

They want the Shark Tank platform for promotion, obviously, but they've already done 23 rounds of financing, and we're getting in at really interesting valuations.

So this season, I keep saying this every year, you know, I, I, this is going to be bigger than ever, and it will be.

Uh, it just keeps going.

I mean, Shark Tank keeps going because it's the essence of the American dream, and I remind everybody constantly, our number one export in America is not technology or energy, it's the American dream, and we are the ambassadors of the American dream at Shark Tank.

That's what we do, not only domestically but all around the world.

Yeah, and Kevin, I look forward to having you back on once the new season launches for Shark Tank, and I do want to hear about some of the trends because personally I've been plant-based for about two decades and I'm noticing a little bit more spirulina, that thing that makes everything blue and green in your food and drinks.

So I look forward to speaking with you about that.

But finally, I have to ask you about TikTok.

A bipartisan majority in Congress passed legislation requiring TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company or face a ban in the US that many Republicans consider the app a national security risk.

So are you and Frank McCourt 100% still interested in acquiring or buying part of the social media platform?

100%.

As far as I know, there's only 2 groups left.

McCourt and I and the original Oracle back deal that wanted to rent the code and it looks now that that's not going to be an option.

So you know, I'm speculating when I say this, but I think at the end of the day there won't be a third extension and so this is going to have to get worked out by the middle of September.

My feeling is that at the end that maybe what happens is the two groups get together because they both have something the other needs.

The Oracle Group actually has shareholders of ByteDance, and they're concerned about the value of the American TikTok, I would think.

And so, but it's now clear from Republican senators and lawmakers that they will not allow the existing Chinese algorithm to be part of the American solution, and that's where the people's bid had already has a platform that could be used that would be compliant.

So maybe we just put these two bids together.

I don't know that.

I'm speculating.

But my bet would be something like that's going to happen sometime in September unless she decides not to sell it.

In the case that we saw in India, it just got turned off, and that could happen here too.

I think that there's a probability of that.

But one thing for sure, it's not going to remain the way it is in terms of the Chinese algorithm after the middle of September.

OK, Kevin, well, we are all out of time for today and fast approaching the opening bell, so have a great weekend.

Thank you so much for joining us and hope to see you back here at the New York Stock Exchange soon.

Take care.

Thank you.