Mark Cuban invests in a motley mix of businesses, from the big (Magnolia Pictures, the Dallas Mavericks and Dropbox) to the small (a candied pretzel startup, a Snapchat-like texting app and a sippy cup maker). And the list goes on and all over the board. But the veteran tech mogul isn’t putting his money behind Bitcoin. Not yet.
“Nope, I haven’t invested in Bitcoin yet,” Cuban told Entrepreneur.com on the set of Shark Tank. “I go up and down on it.”
He seemed pretty down on it back in March, when he told at SXSW that he think’s Bitcoin is “great as an encryption technology,” but not as a cryptocurrency. Not for the long haul. The future, he predicts, isn’t bright for Bitcoin as a cryptocash.
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Like many, Cuban compares Bitcoin to gold and says central banks will never let it truly succeed. He also noted that “no one” that he knows in traditional sales who accepts it as payment keeps it as Bitcoin: “They all translate it to dollars.” And, if they convert the digital money to traditional fiat money, in his mind, it’s not a currency.
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“As a transport mechanism, an accounting digital transport mechanism, it’s unique and has a great opportunity in the future,” Cuban told USA Today. “I think it’s got no shot as a long term digital currency.”
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If the Dallas Mavericks owner ever does jump on the Bitcoin bandwagon, he says it would be purely for entertainment value. “I’d look at [buying] it, but more as fun. It’s almost like buying and selling baseball cards, but there’s definitely risk involved if you’re looking at it to be a long-term currency.”
Will Cuban ever break down and add Bitcoin to his ever-exploding portfolio? “The jury’s still out,” he told us. We’ll have to wait and see.
To see Cuban size up some promising startups outside of the Bitcoin realm, tune in tonight to the Season Six premiere of Shark Tank from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET/PT on your local ABC station.