Billionaire Investor Mark Cuban Seeks Crypto Utility Over Trading

Speaking to CNBC on Jan. 11, the billionaire investor said he looks for utility when researching crypto investments. He followed up with “tokens trading are the least important part of crypto” in a Tuesday tweet.

Decentralized platforms leveraging smart contract technology and DAOs are his preferred choices, he stated.

Tokens trading are the least important part of crypto. Being able to create businesses on decentralized platforms leveraging smart contracts, validators, DAOs and more, create a unique ability to offer more efficient biz processes and disrupt industries. https://t.co/qHrse3S7fQ

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) January 11, 2022

NFT and Ethereum Maxi

He told CNBC that this mantra also applies to everyday investors and what they should look for when considering investing in a crypto-related project.

He stated that tokens that accrue value from the utility their platform creates could be valued like stocks before adding:

“Think eth/polygon tokens that are needed to transact on those networks. You have to buy them to leverage the applications you want to use. Networks with popular apps will have valued tokens.”

Cuban is big on smart contracts and Ethereum, previously describing himself as an “Ethereum maxi” in early November. He is also into non-fungible tokens (NFTs), with his burgeoning portfolio very heavy on the NFT side.

It includes investments in Lazy, NFT Genius, Fabrica, Nifty’s, Mintable, NFT42, CryptoSlam, OpenSea, and SuperRare. Non-NFT related investments include a number of DeFi and layer-2 scaling networks such as DeFi Alliance, Zapper, Polygon, Injective Protocol, and Arbitrum.

Cuban is not so fond of the Metaverse land, however. When asked about investing in virtual land, he said he was “not a fan” and was not sure if they were even collectibles.

“At some point they may have some utility if the metaverse they are in has enough users and the location is needed for something. Until then I’ve avoided,”

Big on DOGE

Cuban is big on Dogecoin, though, having expressed a preference over Bitcoin. As reported by CryptoPotato, the Shark Tank investor recently said Bitcoin could not be considered a hedge against inflation “and never will be.”

In his view, Dogecoin makes a better alternative as a payments network, echoing the sentiments of Elon Musk, who pumped DOGE in early 2021 but actually invested in BTC.