Billionaire entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban says he has sold most of his Bitcoin (CRYPTO: $BTC) holdings after losing confidence in the cryptocurrency’s narrative.
Specifically, Cuban said that the narrative that Bitcoin is a hedge against weakening fiat currencies and geopolitical instability has failed and left him “disappointed.”
Speaking during a podcast, Cuban, who's net worth is estimated at $10 billion U.S., said Bitcoin’s price during the Iran war challenged one of the reasons he owned the digital asset.
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Cuban, who previously owned the Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball team, said: “I always thought (BTC) was a better version of gold than gold. Well, gold just blew up... Bitcoin dropped.”
The comments mark a notable shift for Cuban, who for years publicly defended Bitcoin as a superior version of gold because of its fixed supply and decentralized structure.
In a 2021 interview, Cuban said his cryptocurrency portfolio consisted of 60% Bitcoin, 30% Ethereum (CRYPTO: $ETH), and 10% other digital assets.
At the time, Cuban argued that Bitcoin’s scarcity made it a stronger store of value than gold.
Cuban also compared blockchain technologies and smart contracts to the early internet era, praising Ethereum for enabling decentralized finance applications.
The latest remarks suggest that Cuban’s enthusiasm has cooled, especially towards Bitcoin.
“Not the hedge I expected it to be, and that was really disappointing, and so I'd say I'm more disappointed in Bitcoin... garbage,” Cuban said in the podcast interview.
The criticism comes with Bitcoin trading right around $77,000 U.S., a level it has been at for several weeks after failing to break through resistance at $82,000 U.S.
BTC hit an all-time high of just over $126,000 U.S. last October.