Từ 'Thích chuối hơn' đến bán 80% Bitcoin, mối tình hận với crypto của Mark Cuban

Original author: ChandlerZ, Foresight News

On May 21, billionaire entrepreneur and former owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, stated on the Front Office Sports podcast that he has sold most of his Bitcoin holdings. He believes Bitcoin has failed to effectively hedge against the weakening US dollar and geopolitical turmoil, particularly during the recent Iran conflict. "When the war with Iran caused this big mess, Bitcoin was always seen as the best alternative to fiat currency devaluation. I've always thought it was better than gold. However, gold prices skyrocketed, and Bitcoin went down. And whenever the dollar weakens, Bitcoin is supposed to go up, but it hasn't done that."

"I think Bitcoin has lost the plot."

2019: Would Rather Have a Banana Than Bitcoin

Mark Cuban's public stance on crypto started with skepticism. In September 2019, during a video Q&A with Wired magazine, he said, "I'd rather have bananas than Bitcoin. I can eat the banana." This quote was subsequently widely cited. At the time, he compared Bitcoin to baseball cards, comic books, and art, arguing it had no intrinsic value and emphasizing that crypto was too complicated for 99% of people.

In reality, he had entered the space earlier. In October 2017, Cuban admitted to Bloomberg that he had bought Bitcoin as a "fun" portfolio addition but stressed his position was very small, treating it as a speculative gamble similar to collecting baseball cards or art.

2021: From Banana Pies to Betting 60% on Bitcoin

The shift occurred during the 2021 bull market, transforming Cuban from an observer into one of crypto's most vocal advocates.

In late January, he minted his personal series, "The RollUp 2021," on the NFT platform Rarible, putting an animated GIF of himself dancing in a Mavericks jersey on-chain.

In March 2021, the Dallas Mavericks became the first NBA team to accept Dogecoin for tickets and merchandise. Cuban's rationale was, "Because we can, and it'll generate a lot of PR." In the first month, the Mavericks sold about $122,000 in merchandise via DOGE. Two months later, DOGE hit an all-time high of $0.7375.

Later that year, on The Delphi Podcast, he disclosed his crypto allocation: "About 60% Bitcoin, 30% Ethereum, 10% other," emphasizing he had never sold any Bitcoin. His reasoning was Bitcoin's fixed supply and decentralization, making it a superior store of value compared to gold.

June 2021: A Lesson from Iron Finance

At the peak of the bull market, Cuban got schooled by DeFi.

In June 2021, he published a lengthy blog post titled "The Brilliance of Yield Farming, Liquidity Providing and Valuing Crypto Projects," openly praising the algorithmic stablecoin project Iron Finance on the Polygon chain. He revealed he was a major liquidity provider for the DAI/TITAN pair, with an initial investment of $75,000. Days later, TITAN crashed from nearly $60 to near zero within 24 hours, wiping out roughly $2 billion from the protocol.

An IRON Finance analysis report stated the event was triggered by large whale addresses dumping, causing user panic and mass redemptions of IRON and sales of TITAN. Due to the 10-minute TWAP oracle mechanism, TITAN's spot price fell further relative to the TWAP redemption price, creating a vicious cycle: the more IRON users redeemed, the more TITAN was minted, driving its price down until it nearly hit zero. IRON Finance subsequently paused contract redemptions for USDC.

Cuban did not publicly disclose his specific losses. In an email to Bloomberg, he only said, "The investment wasn't big enough to require checking every detail," calling it a small portion of his crypto holdings. He added, "I got hit just like everyone else. Ironically, I had already pulled some out, thinking their TVL was still growing, and then boom... Ultimately, it's my own laziness. This DeFi game is all about income and math, and I didn't calculate the key metrics correctly."

2022 to 2025: Tangled with Regulators, Sued and Prevailed

After the bull-bear transition, Cuban's crypto life shifted from buying coins to lawsuits and criticizing regulators.

After crypto brokerage Voyager Digital filed for bankruptcy in 2022, retail investors sued Cuban and the Mavericks, accusing him of using the team's partnership to sell a "Ponzi scheme" to inexperienced young people. Cuban publicly criticized former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, arguing that instead of forcing platforms to come in and talk, the SEC should first provide clear rules.

On December 30, 2025, a class-action lawsuit accusing Cuban and the Dallas Mavericks of defrauding investors by promoting Voyager Digital was dismissed. The lawsuit alleged Cuban made multiple misleading statements about the company before it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022. Cuban and his legal team at Brown Rudnick stated, "The lawsuit brought claims under multiple state securities laws and consumer fraud statutes. On December 30, Judge Roy K. Altman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissed the case in its entirety."

In 2025, the billionaire also considered launching his own Memecoin but ultimately did not. In his most recent comments on cryptocurrency, he expressed disappointment stemming from NFTs and Ethereum, although this dissatisfaction was less intense than his distaste for Bitcoin's current state.

One Man, Seven Years, Three Reversals

Since the initial signs of the US-Iran conflict emerged in February 2026, Bitcoin has still accumulated a gain of about 16%, while gold has actually fallen about 15%, and Ethereum has risen about 9%. Cuban saw the snapshot of the days when the conflict escalated. With a longer time horizon, Bitcoin actually outperformed gold. This doesn't negate his disappointment, but it shows his latest judgment remains a highly emotional decision dependent on the specific timeframe.

The arc of Mark Cuban's journey over these seven years is almost a standard template for the retail investor cycle: from skepticism to euphoria, and then to disappointment. The next time he changes his mind will likely be triggered simultaneously by macro narratives and price action.