Billionaire entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban has dramatically reduced his Bitcoin holdings in a blow to the leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Cuban has soured on the crypto king due to its failure to act as a robust store of value and macro hedge against economic headwinds.
Bitcoin's recent price action has been disappointing, according to Cuban (especially compared to traditional safe haven assets of the likes of gold). The billionaire has stated that BTC "has lost the plot."
"Bitcoin has lost the plot. I always thought it was a better version of gold than gold," Cuban stated. "Well, gold just blew up, and Bitcoin dropped. Not the hedge I expected it to be."
The former Dallas Mavericks majority owner also took aim at the broader speculative market, bluntly dismissing memecoins as "garbage."
Early skepticism
Cuban's skepticism is nothing new. For years, he was one of Bitcoin’s most vocal traditional critics among powerful American investors.
In a famous 2019 interview, he stated that he would "rather have bananas" than Bitcoin because bananas have intrinsic value (you can at least eat them).
Cuban would take aim at Bitcoin's usability issues, its lack of utility, as well as the speculative nature of the leading cryptocurrency.
However, the billionaire's stance changed during the pandemic-era bull run. Cuban became fascinated by the underlying technology behind decentralized finance (DeFi).
Cuban sided with the Ethereum camp over Bitcoin due to the former's ability to host decentralized applications.
He then took stakes in projects like Polygon (MATIC), NFT marketplaces like OpenSea and Mintable, and various DeFi protocols.
During the height of the memecoin craze, Cuban also became a prominent champion of Dogecoin. He famously announced that the Dallas Mavericks would accept DOGE for tickets and merchandise.
Dan Burgin
