Is the Crypto Bull Market Over? Kevin O'Leary Breaks It Down

The crypto market has been under increasing pressure due to Donald Trump's trade war and worsening macroeconomic conditions. Some analysts are even saying that the crypto bull run is over and we are entering a bear market. Do you see bitcoin closing the year higher than it started?

I would say yes, if two things occurred.

I sit down with Kevin O', Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, to discuss what's ahead for crypto and the key catalysts that could spark a market reversal in the coming months.

We have been waiting for almost seven years for this legislation. I have a feeling it's going to make it. And when that happens, it's a game changer.

Before we start, this video is not financial advice, just entertainment and education. I'm Giovanni. Let's jump right in. We saw that Trump has unleashed this trade war and that had a massive impact on markets. So do you see this pressure that is being put on the markets continuing for the foreseeable future?

No. Here's what I think's going to happen. Again, this is my own observation. The date that matters to Your question is April 2, when the trade tariff schedules are released by every country. A lot of the focus of the press has been and the volatility has been around the Canadian and Mexican situation. I totally get it. I call those punitive tariffs around fentanyl. That's going in a different direction now. Now on April 2, every country that does business in the United States, they're going to issue the schedule of tariff reciprocal. And so in other words, if there's a tariff on Indian sugar coming into the US at 110% and India has a 200% tariff on sugar, they're going to equalize them. Same thing with Vermont butter going up into province of Quebec. 242% tariff. Well, the Canadians, that's what they tariff the Vermont butter. The US Is going to tariff the Quebec butter. It's the same. And so what you effectively have at April 2 is a complete alignment of tariffs. They're equal. Then what occurs? This is the interesting part. You ask yourself, why am I paying a 243% tariff on butter and why am I charging 243% tariff on butter? How stupid is that? Why don't we just eliminate the tariffs and have free trade? You go the full cycle. So all, all that Trump is doing is he's resetting these schedules, of which some were set up in World War II that far back on every single commodity, product and service. And so the US Is now going to say, look, we're no longer going to have differentials on tariffs. We're going to be equal, forcing every country to the negotiating table. I think this whole mess will be cleaned up in 18 months and it's going to be better for everybody. That's what's going to happen.

I was Talking to Michael McGlon, who is a senior strategic analyst at Bloomberg, and he was pretty bearish on the macroeconomic situation overall. When it comes to crypto and bitcoin in particular, he doesn't see a catalyst that is going to invert the situation. He sees that Bitcoin could decline 60% in 2025, while gold could rise 30 to 40% during 2025. So do you agree with this outlook or you see a different trajectory?

No, I don't agree with that at all. Let's start with the equity markets. 10 to 20% corrections have been in the market for over a hundred years. I mean, generally happen every 24 months. They're healthy. We're going to one right now. The economy is still strong in the U.S. so I anticipate a form of rebound and also more acceleration as the tariffs come off and get negotiated. Crypto markets. Anybody that's tried to forecast the price of bitcoin or any other crypto security has been wrong. And so I don't take that position at all. You try and time it, we never make it work. Let's say you decide you're having 5% weighting in Bitcoin, as I do, that's in a portfolio. My crypto holdings are about 19% overall, so I have other securities. I also have a 5% weighting in gold. I diversify my risk, but I'm not selling my bitcoin because me or any other analyst tells me they're anticipating a 60% decline. Listen, the volatility of bitcoin is well documented. But if you've held it for the last five years, as I have, I'm pretty good with it. And I know it's going to be volatile and I try and keep it at a 5% weighting. So sometimes I add on the dip, sometimes I sell off on picks. I keep it at 5%. It's an old market strategy that's nothing new. The only decision you have to make is, am I going to put crypto into my holdings? Is it part of my portfolio strategy? And if so, which tokens, which coins, what am I doing? And for me, you start with the Granddaddy Bitcoin. Maybe 1 to 3%, waiting at a level one or level two, like each and start developing some diversification. But I'm all locked in. I'm going to be holding crypto because I believe in the next five, six, seven years it's going to be the 12th sector of the economy.

You said that with Trump the era of the crypto cowboys is over in the sense that there is going to be increased legitimacy for crypto. But at the same time we saw that Trump launched meme coins like Trump Coin and then we have Melania Coin. We have crazy speculation rumors around market manipulation. So isn't that a sign that Trump is actually not a factor legitimizing crypto as you as you thought?

Yes, all of that happened. You're correct. However, that's all noise compared to the opportunity at hand, which is really about what's going on in the stablecoin act, now called the Genius Act. That was brought forward by Hagerty and now Jill de Grant has joined it, co authored Republicans, Democrats. It's the first attempt to legalize a stablecoin backed by US dollar and it's immensely important for the crypto industry. Even though you've got the meme coins, you've got the noise, you've got the volatility in the equity markets. We have been waiting for almost seven years for this legislation. It's the first of a series of legislative moves. This is going to be the stablecoin act, the lowest hanging fruit after that Market Structure act which, which will finally determine whether Ethereum and other situations are commodities or securities. And we really need this to start happening because every sector of the economy, and I go right to the stablecoin act, this is digitized payment, digitizing payment systems, digital payment systems are going to be a radical change in financial services. And this is the first step. So I agree with you, there's a lot of noise, but this is the focus right now and we're talking about weeks away from this move. So if you're a crypto investor like I am, the potential of just this first move is like a chess piece. It's the pawn going out to the center of the board. I see finally that stable coins are approved. I need a wallet. I'm going to download Robinhood. I'm going to put $10,000 or a thousand or five hundred dollars into my Robinhood account and I'm going to transact with somebody else that has a Robinhood account. Instead of going through a credit card transaction, I'm going to save a Fortune to save 200 basis points. That's going to happen all over the place, it's going to happen like that. And so you want to own a piece of these exchanges. So I own WonderFi, I own Coinbase, I own Robinhood, because they're all going to benefit just from this first act. I keep going back to this act because it's such a big deal. It's a game changer and we're so close. And if it doesn't pass in this round, it'll pass the next round. This is coming.

Of course, we are very bullish on Bitcoin and crypto in the long term. But when it comes to the midterm, let's say 20, 25, do you see Bitcoin closing the year higher than it started?

I would say yes. If two things occur, the stablecoin act passes and the Infrastructure Acts gets considered in this Congress. If those two things happen, it's going to put a lot of positive pressure on institutions to start getting teams together to, to examine what their strategy is going to be on crypto. I mean, the Market Infrastructure act for crypto is a big deal. That's also a very big deal. But the first one is the stablecoin act, the Genius act, whatever you want to call it, that puts in place policy on how we're going to use a digital payment system all across the world based on US dollar. And that makes sense because every commodity on earth is priced in US dollars. So the minute that happens, all of my businesses are going to open. In my case, I'm choosing USDC because I'm disclosing, I'm a shareholder in Circle and I trust the audit. That's all I care about. I want to know with certainty that one USDC equals one dollar. Once I have that, I'm going to have a lot of that in all the balance sheets of my companies to transfer capital between them across every country. It's so much easier than the FX market.

And now I wanted to touch upon this Genius act that you are, that you have been advocating so much. Some critics of the bill are saying that such an act would put enormous power in the hands of big tech like X, like Amazon, like Google, that they, they would be able to issue their own stable coins. Do you think that that is a valid concern or you don't see any problem here?

No, I'm not concerned about that because I think what's going to happen in terms of the regulators are going to say, look, the currency that we've used for over 200 years successfully has been the American dollar. All we're doing is digitizing The American dollar. I'm not sure they're going to let every single E vendor come up with their own token to use it for transactional purposes. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but I don't care about that. What I care about is getting a digital currency I can trust, put on a balance sheet and use globally. So I'm not worried about. And in terms of innovation, I do not want the federal government innovating anything on crypto. There's no evidence they've ever innovated anything. So let private companies come up under the act. It's just like mutual funds or money market funds. Let them come under the act to build under the terms of the transparency and the assets that have to be presented and audited and let there be multiple stable coins and I'll choose the one I want. I'm going to go with usdc. I said, why? I've been using it for years, but maybe others come along. I don't care. But having, you know, an Amazon token and a Shopify token, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

And now a final question. When it comes to the crypto sectors that you see with the most potential to outperform, whether they are crypto sectors or crypto projects tokens that you are particularly bullish on for 20, 25, what would those be?

Well, you know, guessing which is going to work. I like utility on the blockchain. It's not just bitcoin. I'm looking for things. One of the reasons I like hbar is large corporations are starting to look at it. It's very volatile. It's sitting around 18 cents. I think it went as high as 29. I mean, it's a really roller coaster. I'm not telling people to buy it. I own that. I own Ethereum, I own gitcoin. I have a these things because I don't know with certainty what's going to perform. But I'm telling when people ask me, what should I buy? You can get 90% of the market's volatility with one position, bitcoin. So you don't need to own everything. But if you want some diversification in function and utility, start small. But that's why I'm saying, you know, for me, what's going to happen is these regulations are going to pass and people are going to start to experiment and they're going to, you know, download Robinhood. Well, they're going to say, okay, I'm going to put 10% into crypto. Which one should I get? Well, they're going to use a wallet. They're going to use something they can have, real ease of use. And one way to own crypto is to own own the picks and shovels, buy some of the exchanges. They're all public.

Okay. Kevin. Yeah. It was great to talk to you and thanks again.

Take care, my friend. I'll talk to you.

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