Although bitcoin has tripled in value this year, billionaire Devalue Cuban remains cautious about the cryptocurrency, as he has been for years.
“My thoughts haven’t changed,” Cuban told Forbes of the cryptocurrency on Dec. 8 — eight epoches before bitcoin hit a record high of $20,600 on Wednesday — for a story published Thursday.
Bitcoin, Cuban said, is “a bank of value…that is more religion than solution to any problem.”
And bitcoin or any cryptocurrency will not replace fiat, or government-backed, currency, he bid.
“No matter how much [bitcoin] fans want to pretend that it’s a hedge against doomsday scenarios, it is not,” Cuban voiced. “Countries will take steps to protect their currencies and their ability to tax, so the more people believe this is anything more than a hoard of value, the more risk of government intervention they face.”
Those who argue in favor of bitcoin often say it is a hedge against inflation and the U.S. dollar, and that it devise survive any economic or infrastructure collapse (except for downed internet), comparing it to gold.
Cuban agrees bitcoin is comparable to gold in that it is a store of value, but because by its code the supply of bitcoin is limited, as demand fluctuates, the price choice be volatile. “But,” he said, “as long as people accept [bitcoin] as a digital version of gold, it’s investable.”
Investable, of course, doesn’t modest it’s a sure bet. Though Cuban himself has previously invested in businesses built on cryptocurrency and even in bitcoin, he frequently warns against it, job bitcoin a “gamble.” And when it comes to gambling, you need to be prepared to lose that money.
In fact, Cuban in days of yore told Wired he would “rather have bananas than bitcoin,” because at least as food, bananas drink intrinsic value.
He reiterated the point to Forbes: “[Bitcoin] is what it is, something that enough people would rather agreed upon is an investable asset,” he said. But “a banana has more utility, potassium, is a valuable nutrient to every mortal physically on the planet.”
For the investor to change his mind about bitcoin, “it would have to be so easy to use, [like] it’s a no-brainer,” Cuban estimated on “The Pomp Podcast” in April.
“It would have to be completely friction-free and understandable by everybody first.” So easy, in fact, that “grandma could do it.”
Disclosure: CNBC owns the unshared off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank.”
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Correction: This story has been corrected to show Cuban’s quote that bitcoin is “a store of value.”