In a year that has seen the most cynical critic becoming a crypto faithful, crypto continues to boom, with traditional institutions and high-net-worth individuals wanting a piece of the crypto pie.

Popular TV personality Kevin O’Leary, known to Shark Tank fans as “Mr. Wonderful,” has decided to leave the critics' boat behind and join the Bitcoin train.

The Canadian investor who is infamously remembered for calling Bitcoin “garbage” two years ago has finally made a 180 on BTC. Volatility was the primary reason O'Leary and Mark Cuban were quick to write-off the digital asset. Calling into question the sustainability of an asset that could easily fall as much as 30% in one week.

At one point, Cuban said he preferred owning bananas to Bitcoin. But still, he made sure his basketball company, the Mavericks, offered BTC payment options for fans. O'Leary plans to allocate 3% of his investment portfolio to the highly volatile assets class.

The covid-19 pandemic brought the world to its knees. It also brought investors into cryptocurrencies. Notable tech companies like Square, MicroStrategy, and Tesla Inc. have made a dynamic tweak to their investment practice which has seen Bitcoin featuring heavily.

MicroStrategy has built a name for itself with its pivot into Bitcoin. The publicly-traded company has been on a buying spree. It owns a reported 90,859 BTC worth $4.3 billion.

Tesla has been more conservative and invested only 7.7% of its cash reserves in BTC, costing it $1.5 billion. Square, owned by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, has been a more quiet BTC buyer even as it boasts over $300 million locked in the largest crypto by market cap.

Institutional adoptions have seen many critics rethinking their decision, and Kevin O'Leary is the latest addition to the BTC family. In a tweet posted on his verified Twitter profile, the Shark Tank colleague of Cuban said the rapidly changing regulatory environment played a role in his decision. Mr. Wonderful, as he is fondly known on TV, had previously said he owned only $100 in crypto so far. But his 3% allocation will definitely increase his exposure to crypto-assets.

Making an official announcement on his shift towards crypto on a Feb.22 CNBC's show hosted by Hadley Gamble, O'Leary said that digital currencies have come to stay. He also added that he would stake 3% of his investment portfolio on the foremost cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum.

While O'Leary has committed to a future partnership in crypto, Cuban has been quite active in the space. He once admitted to being intrigued by meme-based cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE). Stating that his 11-year old son was also a crypto investor, the billionaire investor said that many things have changed since crypto began to have more real-world use cases.

Following this DOGE love, Cuban admitted that he is most fascinated by Ethereum’s smart contract functionality. To him, the second most valuable crypto-asset is set to disrupt the business models of most tech companies. While he still considers Bitcoin to be more valuable than gold due to its metered units, he has his attention riveted on Ethereum.

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