Bear market will last until cryptocurrencies are actually useful: Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur known for his role as one of the main investors in the reality TV show Shark Tank, said that the crypto bear market will not be over until there is a better focus on applications with benefits.

He also does not think the market has reached “cheap” prices yet.

Cuban has previously stated that around 80% of his non-Shark Tank portfolio was in crypto. When he appeared in an episode of Bankless Podcast on June 23, he was asked how long he thinks the current market for crypto bears will last:

“It lasts until there’s a catalyst and that catalyst is going to be an application, or we’ll get so low that people go ‘fuck, I’ll buy some.’

He believes a better focus on applications with utility will pull crypto from the downturn, and with so many apps focused on financial technology or collectibles, the launch of a business-focused application will be one such event that could trigger a reversal for the markets.

Using the example of a “decentralized version of Quickbooks”, a small business accounting management software, Cuban predicted a rush of users if something like this was launched.

Despite the fact that analysts predict that Bitcoin (BTC) as well as many other cryptocurrencies have reached a price bottom, Cuban says “it is not cheap yet” when analyzing the high market value of some projects:

“You look at the market values, and you see that it’s a billion dollars plus market value or $ 6 billion or $ 8 billion or $ 40 billion, you do not look at it and say ‘it’s cheap.’ If you remember back to DeFi Summer, these things were sold for less than a penny and their market values ​​were in the hundreds of millions. “

He adds even with lower market value crypts “there is no use”, and gives an example of the decentralized exchange (DEX) SushiSwap (SUSHI) token as a “relatively cheap” purchase with a market value of $ 215 million, but added:

“You get paid for it if you are a liquidity provider, but who will buy it from you? What is the reason for buying it from you? “

Cuban believes that mergers between different protocols and blockchains will eventually see the crypto industry consolidated, as “that’s what’s happening in every industry.”

“I would rather join someone who says ‘let’s do a roll-up’,” with Cubans saying he would support merging different blockchains, closing others and then moving applications and communities to just one and offering a token exchange or bridge from the closing block chains to gate users above:

“Now your user base is suddenly 10x, you still have a problem with better applications, you still have to have some reason why people want to use that blockchain, but you can at least have a better community to come up with ideas because otherwise you gone. “

With the crypto space having different subsectors such as layer 1s, layer 2s, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens, Cuban was asked what he was most optimistic about.

Related: Mark Cuban says that cryptocurrency highlights Warren Buffett’s wisdom

Cuban said he was particularly interested in carbon-offset DeFi tokens, which he is passionate about compensating for his own personal carbon footprint. He added that while not everyone cares about compensating for their carbon emissions, it was the “easiest way” compared to buying carbon compensation from a broker, which he claims is “a pain in the ass.”

In the end, Cuban said “all of them have potential, that’s why they got all this money, everyone has a reason to think they’re better and want to succeed.”