Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Warner also hosts Decrypt's daily news show, "FOMO Hour."

Kevin O'Leary says Bitcoin can reach $1 million — but only if the industry resolves a quantum computing risk that does not yet exist.

Speaking at Avalanche Summit, the investor and "Shark Tank" personality appeared wearing an $11 million Shohei Ohtani baseball card around his neck, sealed in a Tiffany holder encrusted with 110 carats of diamonds. He used the card to make a point about tokenization — the representation of real-world assets as tradable blockchain tokens — then spent the rest of the interview explaining why Bitcoin gets to $1 million, but only if the industry solves a problem that has yet to arrive.

The Q-Day Condition

That condition is Q-Day — the point at which a quantum computer could forge the signatures securing every Bitcoin wallet. No such machine exists, and estimates for when one arrives range from the early 2030s to never. O'Leary argued that the doubt alone is why large funds cap their Bitcoin exposure near 3%, treating it as a sliver of gold rather than a core holding. If Bitcoin developers can resolve that doubt, he said, the cap moves.

A Reversal on Ethereum

The bigger reversal concerned Ethereum. Eighteen months ago, O'Leary's thesis was that owning Bitcoin and Ethereum captured 97% of crypto's upside because everyone would standardize on Ethereum. He now says that did not happen and does not believe it will, calling ETH not fast enough and not secure enough — a view he flagged as his own opinion.

He now thinks entire industries will pick their own chains, and that whichever blockchain the first major exchange adopts for tokenization will see its token go through the roof, because it becomes the plumbing every trade runs through.

Well-Timed Comments

The interview landed at a notable moment. The SEC approved its Innovation Exemption for tokenized stocks last week, and ICE is evaluating Avalanche as the settlement layer for the NYSE's in-development trading system — the same blockchain behind the summit where he made the case. O'Leary framed crypto as becoming the twelfth sector of the S&P because it services the other eleven.

In his analysis, Warner wrote that there is some validity to O'Leary's views. He argued that the quantum overhang is the main thing keeping Bitcoin down and may even cap its upside in the upcoming bull cycle. On Ethereum and tokenization, he noted that Robinhood would disagree: the brokerage chose to build on Ethereum with Robinhood Chain (via Arbitrum, an Ethereum layer-2 network), and tokenization is accelerating rapidly across crypto-native blockchains. While some companies may opt to build their own chains, he wrote, there will be big tokenization winners among existing chains — and Ethereum is still in pole position.

Macro, Crypto and Markets

Crypto majors were broadly higher, up 5–7%: BTC +6% at $85,700; ETH +6% at $2,735; SOL +9% at $119; HYPE +4% at $94; and ZEC +6% at $1,521.

Top alt movers included SEI (+27%), SUI (+27%), NEAR (+12%), and VVV (+14%), with 25 of the crypto top 100 up 10% or more.

Away from crypto, oil fell 3% to $97 and gold slipped 1% to $4,380. Stock futures were firmly higher as oil and bond yields fell: the Dow rose 0.8% and the Nasdaq gained 1%.

Regulation and Business

• The CFT sent a crypto prerule to the White House two days after the Clarity Act, Congress's crypto market-structure bill, failed, titled "Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets," signaling it will build a derivatives framework on its own authority.
• Coinbase filed with the CFTC to list single-stock perpetual futures — derivative contracts with no expiry date — starting with roughly 50 to 60 contracts including Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, and Nvidia, on a 45-day review running to November 2.
• Visa is closing the merchant-code loophole that let meme coin purchases earn credit card rewards through Crossmint checkouts on Robinhood Wallet and Fomo, with the grace period ending next week.
• Zcash, the privacy-focused chain, targets the NU7 upgrade for November 5, cutting block times from 75 seconds to 25 to make shielded payments roughly three times faster, with at least 60% of transaction fees supplementing mining rewards from 2031.
• Goldman Sachs and Citizens flagged Coinbase, Robinhood, and Circle as early beneficiaries of the SEC's tokenized-stock exemption, citing custody, tokenization infrastructure, and stablecoin settlement.
• Gemini's market value has fallen to about $753 million, down 80% from its IPO, reviving takeover speculation around the licenses, custody infrastructure, and customer relationships a buyer would inherit.

Corporate Treasuries and ETFs

The Bitcoin ETFs saw $433 million in net inflows on Friday, the ETH ETFs took in $143 million, and the SOL ETFs drew $48 million.

Grayscale's Zcash ETF will run a 3-for-1 forward split effective September 30, after pulling in more than $233 million since its August 25 debut and approaching $890 million in assets.

Meme Coin Tracker

Meme leaders were broadly higher, up 5–10%: DOGE +10%, SHIB +7%, PEPE +8%, PENGU +8%, TRUMP +6%, and SPX +11%.

Robinhood Chain leaders were green and rebounding after a red weekend: Pons +8% to $420 million; AI +20% at $280 million; Cashcat +23% at $180 million; with Orbio (+70%), ZZZ (+80%), and Index (+15%) leading top movers.

Solana's top movers were led by Stamp (+600x), Zebra (+110x), and Rawr (+180%); Ansem gained 20% to $169 million.

The Stonk ecosystem rallied as Stonk climbed 30% to $310 million and a new all-time high, with ZCAT +18% to $120 million, Knots +33% to $24 million, Allinu +30% to $20 million, and Nearkat +88% to $14 million.

Token, Airdrop and Protocol Tracker

Robinhood Chain's daily fees fell 97%, from roughly $8 million to $230,000, between early September and September 16, while transactions slipped only 32% and DEX volume rose 5% to about $13 billion.

Hyperliquid led onchain protocols in revenue over the past week with $15.1 million, followed by Pump at $11.89 million, Stonkfun at $5 million, and Pons at $3.63 million. Stonkfun has posted three straight days of more than $1.1 million in revenue since Friday and is on pace for another today.

What Is Happening in NFTs?

NFT leaders were mostly flat: Punks even at 29.7 ETH, BAYC -3% at 6.5 ETH, and Pudgy -1% at 3.28 ETH. Identity MD (+49%), Mad Lads (+36%), and Kaoforms (+65%) led top movers.

Zksnarks fell to a 0.7 ZEC floor from their 1.5 ZEC mint price in their first weekend of trading.

FWA rebounded 100% on the week to $20 million after its v2 release, seeing more demand around its decaying Punks — one collector won a Punk backed with just 1.9 ETH over the weekend.