Mavs owner Mark Cuban: „Bitcoin is a religion, fulfils no practical use“.
Prominent billionaire and entrepreneur Mark Cuban reiterates his view that Bitcoin (BTC) is more of a collectible than a reliable financial product for him.
The owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Dirk Nowitzki’s former team, had claimed in the past that even bananas are a better means of payment than Bitcoin.
The „plague year“ of 2020 has been a good one for Bitcoin, driving adoption by institutional investors to new heights. While large companies such as MicroStrategy and Grayscale have bought significant amounts of the Bitcoin Future cryptocurrency, many influential minds from traditional finance have now also acquired a taste for it. Nevertheless, Bitcoin continues to have many critics.
For example, in an interview with Forbes on 8 December, Mark Cuban said that investors should not view the cryptocurrency „as a hedge against disaster“, alluding to the fact that Bitcoin is often interpreted by investors as a hedge because there is little correlation to the stock markets. Similarly, Cuban rejects the idea that the cryptocurrency could replace fiat currencies in the future.
„Bitcoin is a store of value like gold, and is more of a religion than it is of any real practical use,“ Cuban states. He then adds, „Countries will protect their national currencies and their power to collect taxes, so the more people believe that Bitcoin is more than a store of value, the more they run the risk that the government will counter it.“
The Mavericks owner had made the relevant remarks when Bitcoin was still below the US$19,000 mark. A short time later, the market-leading cryptocurrency was then able to „disprove“ his theses by climbing above 20,000 US dollars for the first time in its history.
At the time of going to press, the Bitcoin price even exceeds 23,000 US dollars
The billionaire had already repeatedly criticised the cryptocurrency in the past, attesting that even bananas have a greater added value than Bitcoin:
„A banana has more value because for every person in the world it is a healthy food. But as long as people see Bitcoin as a digital version of gold, BTC is an investment vehicle.“
Mark Cuban has an estimated personal wealth of US$4.2 billion. In August 2019, he stated that at the time he only had US$130 in Bitcoin, which he had generated by selling tickets and merchandise for his basketball club.