May 21, 2026
When one of Canada’s best-known investors calls most of the cryptocurrency market “poo poo,” it’s worth paying attention — especially if you’re sitting on a portfolio full of altcoins wondering whether to hold or fold.
Kevin O’Leary, the Montréal-born venture capitalist and Dragons’ Den personality, recently told The Breakdownpodcast that altcoins are “screwed” (1) — a pointed declaration from an investor who once held 27 different cryptocurrencies and now holds only three.
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In a caption shared to X, O’Leary summarized his strategy bluntly: “I cut the garbage and kept what works (2).”
O’Leary puts his faith in Bitcoin and Ethereum
The interview comes at a critical moment in crypto markets. After falling sharply in February 2026 to around USD$60,000, Bitcoin has remained below its all-time high of over US$126,000 — about C$173,000 a coin — recorded in October 2025 (3).
Bitcoin’s dominance over the rest of the market is so significant that every other cryptocurrency is simply called an “altcoin” by comparison. O’Leary says he sold 24 of them following the 2025 market collapse, keeping only Bitcoin, USD (a stablecoin) and Ethereum — the largest altcoin by market capitalization (1).
His assessment of other coins? In his view, “there’s no reason to own them.”
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Is this a fair assessment?
The size of the altcoin market suggests these assets still attract some investor interest. Crypto tracker CoinMarketCap pegs the total altcoin market at over US$700 billion, excluding Ethereum (4).
And sentiment is shifting. Mid-February 2026, the CoinMarketCap Fear and Greed Index plunged into a historic low of 5, signalling “extreme fear,” following the “10/10” liquidation cascade. That’s the historic flash crash where more than $19B in leveraged trading positions were wiped out within 24 hours in the largest single-day liquidation event in digital asset history, affecting more than 1.6 million traders globally (5).
People are paying attention to altcoins, especially now. But are they actually profiting from ownership?
Find the best platform for your needs. Read our full review of the top Canadian crypto exchanges to compare fees, security features, and available coins.
2025 was the year of dead coins
O’Leary says altcoins that collapsed in 2025 “never came back,” and there’s data to support that view.
Over 50% of coins tracked by CoinGecko became defunct between 2021 and 2025, with 11.6 million of those failures occurring in 2025 alone (6). CoinGecko’s analysis credits much of that failure to platforms like pump.fun, which make it easy to generate meme coins with names like Peanut, Fatcoin and Mother Iggy (7).
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It would be unfair to blame the death of altcoins entirely on meme coin generators. After all, 91% of crypto coins that existed in 2014 are now completely abandoned. Some never took off. Others collapsed after investors were “rug pulled” — a term for when coin developers abandon a project and take investor funds with them (8).
Their short history suggests most coins die fast. Their performance is comparable to penny stocks — speculative shares that trade for less than $5 apiece. Research suggests roughly 60% of penny stocks approach zero value within three years (9).
The data suggests altcoins, like penny stocks, are high-risk ventures at best.
O’Leary says liquidity is concentrated in Ethereum and Bitcoin, which are easier to trade and tend to recover after downswings. They’re generally considered the most stable crypto assets — though “stable” is a relative term in a market known for dramatic swings.
Read more: Here are the 3 net worth milestones that change everything for Canadians (and what they say about you)
Some altcoins are liquid and useful — for now
Recent regulatory developments have made it easier for Canadian crypto investors to separate scam from substance, though the framework here differs from what exists in the U.S.
In the United States, more than a dozen crypto assets have been classified as “digital commodities” by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) (10). To qualify, an asset must derive its value from an underlying crypto system — not only from investors’ profit expectations, according to Fidelity (11).
In Canada, no equivalent “digital commodity” classification exists. Instead, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), an umbrella organization of provincial and territorial securities regulators, oversees crypto asset trading platforms operating in Canada. Platforms that trade crypto assets deemed to be securities must register with their applicable provincial regulator — in Ontario, that means the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) (12).
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Like their American counterparts, most crypto assets in Canada are treated as securities. That filtering effect removes a large swath of speculative tokens — including the “poo poo” coins O’Leary dismisses — from the pool of assets accessible on registered, compliant platforms.
For investors who remain interested in crypto, two better-known altcoins — Solana and Chainlink — stand out for their real-world utility. Both are classified as digital commodities in the U.S. Solana is a smart contract platform and Chainlink secures on-chain transactions. This functional grounding makes them more likely to attract institutional interest than speculative meme coins (13).
A word of caution: Even the best-known altcoins are volatile. Bitcoin, sometimes called “digital gold,” is currently down over 30% from its all-time highs (14). As O’Leary says, patience is part of any crypto strategy.
And also in O’Leary’s words: “Discipline wins.”
What Canadian crypto investors should know
O’Leary’s approach raises practical questions for Canadian investors. Here are key considerations specific to holding and managing crypto in Canada.
How the CRA taxes crypto
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) treats cryptocurrency as a commodity, not a currency. That means every trade, sale or exchange of a crypto asset is a taxable event (14).
Gains are taxed in one of two ways:
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- Capital gains: If you hold and sell crypto as a long-term investment, 50% of the gain is included in your income and taxed at your marginal rate (14). The federal government proposed increasing this inclusion rate to 2/3 (66.67%) for gains over $250,000 in the 2024 budget, but officially cancelled this proposal in 2025. As of April 2026, the capital gains inclusion rate sits at 50% (15).
- Business income: If you trade frequently or “mine” crypto, the CRA may treat the full amount as business income, and therefore fully taxable.
Selling, swapping or disposing of any crypto — including trading one altcoin for another — triggers a tax obligation. Keeping detailed records of every transaction is essential.
You can’t hold crypto directly in a TFSA or RRSP
One key difference for Canadian investors: Cryptocurrency can’t be held directly in a Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) or Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP). Unlike stocks or bonds, raw crypto isn’t a qualified investment under the Income Tax Act (16).
However, Canadian-listed cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) — such as the Purpose Bitcoin ETF (BTCC) or Purpose Ether ETF (ETHH), both trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) — can be held in registered accounts, allowing Canadians to gain exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum with the tax sheltering advantages of a TFSA or RRSP (17).
How investors can assess altcoins through a Canadian lens
For Canadians curious about altcoins, the CSA’s investor caution framework provides a useful starting point. Before investing in any crypto asset, ask:
- Is the platform registered with your provincial securities regulator?
- Does the asset have a clear, real-world use case — or is it purely speculative?
- Can you afford to lose the entire amount invested?
- Have you accounted for the tax consequences of every trade?
O’Leary’s approach — simplify, cut the noise, hold only what you believe in for the long term — is a discipline many Canadians holding sprawling altcoin portfolios might benefit from applying.
Bottom line
Kevin O’Leary’s crypto cleanup from 27 coins down to three is a useful example for any Canadian investor sitting on a cluttered altcoin portfolio. Crypto’s short history backs his skepticism: Most coins fail, few recover and liquidity tends to concentrate in Bitcoin and Ethereum over time.
That doesn’t mean every altcoin has zero worth. A small number have real utility, regulatory footing and institutional backing. But identifying them requires the same discipline O’Leary preaches — and the will to cut out what doesn’t hold up.
For Canadian investors, the stakes are sharpened by a tax environment where every trade is a taxable event, registered accounts can’t directly hold crypto and the regulatory framework is still catching up on the market. This means crypto mistakes carry real financial consequences beyond a declining portfolio value.
O’Leary’s rule of thumb is simple: If you can’t explain why you own something, you probably shouldn’t.
Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
The Breakdown (1); Benzinga (2); CNBC (3); TradingView (4); Coin Gecko (5, 6, 7); Coinbase (8); Bitget (9, 12); Fintech Weekly (10); Fidelity (11); Binance (13); Changelly (14); Cardinal Point Focus Partners Canada (14); Zeifman’s (15); Taxpage.com (16); Purpose Investments (17)
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Cole Tretheway has been covering money for four years. He started as an intern at The Motley Fool Money, covering best-of credit cards, savings accounts, and financial products. He's since expanded into wholistic personal finances, including the psychology of money.
