Cuban has been catapulted again into the information after claiming that Gary Gensler’s anti-crypto stance may price Joe Biden the presidential election in November.
Billionaire investor and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban hasn’t all the time been a fan of cryptocurrencies.
A bit over 4 years in the past, he was particularly dismissive of Bitcoin — declaring that he’d quite have bananas as a result of they’ve utility.
Quick ahead to 2022, and issues couldn’t have been extra completely different. In an interview with the comic Jon Stewart, Cuban revealed 80% of the investments he was making away from Shark Tank have been associated to digital belongings.
The entrepreneur additionally spoke of his bullishness surrounding decentralized autonomous organizations and sensible contracts — and perception that companies powered by collective governance and self-executing agreements will dominate the twenty first century.
However in his eyes, there’s one factor that’s standing in the best way of digital belongings attaining their full potential, particularly within the U.S: regulatory paralysis.
Cuban has emerged as a scathing critic of the Securities and Change Fee — arguing that the physique, below Gary Gensler, was asleep on the wheel when FTX collapsed.
Final summer time, the 65-year-old accused the SEC of conceitedness — and stated the widespread monetary injury brought on by Sam Bankman-Fried may have been averted. Pointing to how Japan discovered classes within the wake of Mt. Gox going bankrupt in 2014, he posted:
“When FTX crashed, NO ONE IN FTX JAPAN LOST MONEY. If the USA/SEC had adopted their instance by setting clear rules that required the separation of buyer and enterprise funds and clear pockets necessities, NO ONE HERE WOULD HAVE LOST MONEY ON FTX.”
Mark Cuban
The Voyager debacle
In fact, hindsight is 20/20. Whereas Cuban’s vital public profile wasn’t linked with the spectacular collapse of FTX — not like his fellow Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary and numerous different celebrities — the businessman has been recognized to again the improper horses previously.
Simply final week, the Dallas Morning Information reported that Cuban is constant to face authorized motion over his involvement with the doomed crypto lending platform Voyager Digital.
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Cuban is the proprietor of the Dallas Mavericks, and the basketball crew had entered right into a high-profile, five-year partnership with Voyager in 2021. On the time, the entrepreneur spoke of his ambition to introduce much more sports activities followers to cryptocurrencies — constructing on a legacy of accepting Bitcoin and Dogecoin for tickets and merchandise. In quotes at a information convention that basically didn’t age nicely, he had stated:
“I feel Voyager goes to be a frontrunner amongst sports activities followers and crypto followers across the nation.”
Mark Cuban
It took simply seven months for Cuban to be confirmed improper — with Voyager spooking the market by suspending withdrawals and deposits in July 2022 and admitting that clients might by no means be made entire. A month later, a lawsuit accused him of engaging uninformed shoppers to position their whole financial savings in a “Ponzi scheme” — and pointed to a quote the place Cuban stated Voyager was “as close to to risk-free as you’re going to get in crypto.” Ouch.
The newest Dallas Morning Information report means that, whereas different sports activities stars have agreed to pay a complete of $2.4 million in damages, Cuban is unprepared to settle — and he has lengthy denied allegations that he misled traders.
As a lot as Cuban could also be leaping up and down about failures to cease FTX, the billionaire’s personal observe document when endorsing crypto corporations isn’t freed from blemishes.
What’s taking place now?
Cuban has been catapulted again into the information after even claiming that Gary Gensler may price Joe Biden the presidential election in November. He went on to warn:
“That is additionally a warning to Congress. Crypto voters will likely be heard this election. You would remedy this drawback for Biden by passing laws that defines registration that’s particular to the crypto trade.”
Mark Cuban
Some progress is being made right here. Republican Cynthia Lummis and Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand proposed laws particular to stablecoins final month.
In the meantime, there’s widespread excitement about information that the Monetary Innovation and Know-how for the twenty first Century Act (FIT21) will head to a vital ground vote inside weeks — doubtlessly giving better certainty to crypto corporations, and better readability as to what falls below the remit of the SEC and the Commodities Futures Buying and selling Fee respectively.
With 8.8 million followers on X — and a public profile besides — Cuban is arguably some of the seen, and vocal, supporters of crypto.
And whereas it’s extremely unlikely that Biden would lose the looming election primarily based on crypto alone, the billionaire appears decided to make use of his platform to make sure the way forward for digital belongings turns into a difficulty of nationwide significance.