Mark Cuban, U.S. billionaire investor and television personality, said he would rather have bananas than bitcoin, but that he could “make a great argument for blockchain”.
Cuban, one of the investors in the U.S. TV show Shark Tank and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, answered questions on Twitter in a video recorded by Wired magazine becoming – in the process – the latest proponent of the “blockchain not bitcoin” mantra.
Critical of bitcoin’s “real-world” use, Cuban likened owners of cryptocurrencies to collectors of comic books or art. He said:
Here’s the thing about crypto, particularly Bitcoin. Bitcoin is worth what somebody will pay for it (…) Comic books are the same thing, even artwork. There’s no real intrinsic value.
Cuban Debunks Digital Gold
While many bitcoin advocates have recently compared bitcoin’s qualities to gold’s haven investment status, Cuban, however, criticized bitcoin’s “digital gold” label by focusing on the dangers of owning such assets, questioning how crypto owners can be sure they’re not going to be hacked. He added:
People who are really into gold will tell you that if there’s a bad depression and things to go hell in a handbasket, and you own gold then you’ll be ok. No you won’t. If you carry around a gold bar, someone’s going to hit your a**, knock you out and steal your gold bar.
While he said he’d rather have bananas – “I can eat bananas” – Cuban said he could make a great argument for blockchain. He concluded:
There’s a lot of applications and they’ll be used,but you don’t need bitcoin. You can create blockchain on your own without using all the available cryptocurrencies.
Featured Image Credit: Photo via Pexels.com
