Kevin O’Leary has moved away from the NFTS to put millions of people in rare physical collectibles, especially high-end sports cards.
The “Shark Tank” star and O’Leary Ventures chair recently co-purchased a $13 million dual logoman card featuring Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. This card is unique and O’Leary is sometimes referred to as “Mr. Wonderfor,” but it considers it the cornerstone of the unique collectible “growing ‘indexes’.
“The majority of the returns over the 20 years have been infringed by collectors who purchased the work,” O’Leary said, comparing his strategy to years of investment in Andy Warhol Art and luxury watches. Rather than outperforming others, O’Leary partnered with two investors to get the card. “I would rather own 33 and a third of that than zero,” he said.
Pouring millions into rare sports cards is not a passionate project. It’s a calculated bet. “It used to be traded 75,000 years ago and a few years ago, but it shows a rise in prices,” says O’Leary.
“Grown men cry when they see this,” he added.
Tokenization via NFT
Despite overlap with tokenization, O’Leary made it clear that he has no interest in NFTs.
“NFT turned out to be a trend,” he said. “I’m only buying assets, which are physical assets… (NFT) fads have come and gone. I didn’t understand it, so I wasn’t involved in it.”
O’Leary’s sharp layoff of NFTs comes just a few years after the market exploded in popularity. In 2021, trading volume in the NFT market skyrocketed from just $95 million the previous year to $25 billion, according to data from Dappradar and Chainalys. Celebrities such as Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton and Steph Curry rushed to launch the collection, with major brands like Nike, Adidas and Coca-Cola entering the space.
However, the hype was short-lived. Data shows NFT sales have fallen by more than 80% by mid-2022, with priced high-profile collections, with boring APE Yacht Club and Cryptopunks coming from their peak.
The O’Leary issue with NFTS is the lack of physical presence of assets. “Where are the assets? Where can I put my white gloves and touch them? That’s something you can’t do with NFTs.”
However, he said his collections will “become tokenized one day.”
Wall Street in Chain
O’Leary frames this shift as “Chain-on Wall Street” as part of a larger mission.
He believes that blockchain infrastructure can modernize the way assets are managed. This improves transparency, liquidity and trust in markets that still rely heavily on intermediaries.
He remains bullish with basic cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the infrastructure is revived like mining operators and exchanges.
