Kevin O'Leary, the Shark Tank investor, revealed in an interview with CoinDesk that he now controls 26,000 acres of land across multiple regions, aimed at powering infrastructure for AI, cloud computing, and crypto mining. That includes 13,000 acres in Alberta, Canada (previously disclosed) and another 13,000 acres in undisclosed locations currently undergoing permitting.
O'Leary has over 19% of his portfolio in crypto-related investments, covering digital assets, infrastructure, and land. He compares bitcoin mining to a real estate play, having already backed power infrastructure firm Bitzero, which operates data centers in Norway, Finland, and North Dakota for both mining and high-performance computing.
Land First, Data Centers Later
O'Leary believes both mining and AI data centers require massive land and power to even start building. His strategy is not to build centers himself but to acquire land and power, then lease them back as shovel-ready sites. "My job is not necessarily to build a data center," he said. "It's to prepare shovel-ready permits." He predicts about half of all data centers announced in the last three years "will never get built," calling the rush a "land grab without any understanding of what it takes."
His newly acquired lands are being prepared for energy-intensive uses—short-term bitcoin mining and long-term hyperscaler and government data centers. Sites come with full utilities: power, water, fiber, and air rights. O'Leary said power contracts in some undisclosed locations are "more valuable than bitcoin itself," especially those offering sub-six-cent per kilowatt hour pricing. Infrastructure, he argues, will prove more important than tokens over the long run.
Only Bitcoin and Ether Matter
O'Leary has grown skeptical of most of the crypto market. He says institutional capital only cares about two assets: bitcoin and ether. While recently launched ETFs have brought in retail money, he dismisses their institutional relevance: "In the context of the financial services market, they aren't even a teenage pimple." He claims "97.2% of the entire volatility of the entire crypto market since inception" comes solely from Bitcoin and Ethereum. "All the poopoo coins are still stuck down 60 to 90% and they're never coming back," he added.
A Charles Schwab report noted that nearly 80% of crypto's ~$3.2 trillion market cap is tied up in foundational blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum, reinforcing the concentration of value.
Regulation Unlocks the Next Wave
What would lure big institutions beyond Bitcoin and Ether? Regulation, O'Leary says. Clear rules are the key to unlocking broader institutional participation in crypto.