Along with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Kevin O’Leary ‘needs’ to invest in Solana, Polygon, Hedera

Kevin O’Leary, one of the most vocal institutional cryptocurrency investors, has considerably expanded his digital asset holdings over the past year. Once a critic of the novel asset class, the “Shark Tank” star, and investor has since increased his crypto investments to 10% of his portfolio, admittedly, in Bitcoin

The Canadian entrepreneur does hold other digital coins in secret, along with companies building products in the space. Companies such as decentralized wallets and they have reported plans to expand his portfolio even further. And the one factor that greatly weighs on his selection is the fundamental value of the cryptocurrency, O’Leary revealed while talking to CNBC.

He said that he does not consider cryptocurrencies in the same way that other people do, and instead focuses on their “software development” aspect. Hence, it was important for him to understand which blockchain platform would “win long term” while investing in the space.

“I don’t know who the winner will be”

Some of the winners include Solana, Polygon, and HBAR, according to O’Leary, all of which have recently been making waves in the DeFi community. He further added,

“I need to invest in all of those, not just one of them because I don’t know who the winner’s going to be.”

Solana and Polygon have both experienced a great surge in popularity and adoption this past year, thanks to the congestion issues routinely faced by the Ethereum network.

While Polygon is a layer 2 protocol that provides scalability to Ethereum, Solana has emerged as one of ETH’s fiercest opponents by offering lightning-fast transactions and significantly lower fees. At the back of this success, the native tokens of both platforms have also appreciated multi-folds during this time.

While Kevin O’Leary has in the past been a fierce supporter of Ethereum, he had not shied away from admitting his belief in its competitors. In a previous interview, he had noted that it was all part of diversification, which is key for an investor like him.

As for HBAR, which is the native token of the distributed ledger technology Hedera Hashgraph, its inclusion is unsurprising considering the big names like Google and IBM that are associated with the protocol. Hedera focuses on decentralizing operations and governance. Most major tech firms around the globe participate in its governing council. It also reportedly has the lowest environmental impact of any proof-of-stake blockchain.

Even then, HBAR is the 37th highest rated cryptocurrency on CoinGecko, having lost 40% of its valuation since it last touched an all-time high in mid-September.