Mark Cuban: Bear Market Will Last Until Crypto Apps Are Really Useful

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban is best known for being the lead investor on the reality show Shark Tank. The bear market in cryptocurrencies will not end unless people pay better attention to utility applications, he said.

He also believes that the market has not yet reached "cheap" prices.

Cuban has said in the past that about 80 percent of his portfolio outside of Shark Tank is in cryptocurrencies. On a June 23 episode of the Bankless Podcast, he was asked how long the current crypto bear market will last:

He believes that a better focus on applications with utility will lift cryptocurrencies out of the doldrums. Given the number of apps currently focused on financial technology or collectibles, the launch of a business-focused app would be one of the events that would trigger a market reversal.

Cuban cited the "decentralized Quickbooks version" of small business accounting management software as an example, predicting that if similar software is launched, it will attract a large number of users.

While analysts predict that the price of Bitcoin (BTC), as well as many other cryptocurrencies, has bottomed out, Cuban said "it's not cheap right now" when analyzing the high market capitalization of some projects.

He added that even cryptocurrencies with lower market caps "have little utility," citing, for example, the decentralized exchange SushiSwap (SUSHI) token, which has a market cap of $215 million, and is a "relatively cheap" purchase object, but he added:

Cuban believes there will be consolidation across the cryptocurrency industry as different protocols and blockchains merge, as "it's something that happens in every industry."

Cuban said he supports the merger of various blockchains, shutting down other blockchains, and then moving applications and communities onto the same blockchain, and providing a token swap or bridge to transfer the closed blocks users in the chain.

There are multiple subfields in the encryption field, such as Layer 1, Layer 2, NFT and DeFi tokens. Cuban was asked which field he was most optimistic about.

Cuban said he is particularly interested in carbon-offsetting DeFi tokens. This token refers to compensating one's own carbon footprint by burning tokens. He added that while not everyone cares about offsetting their carbon emissions, it is the "easiest way" compared to buying carbon offsets from a broker, which is a "nasty thing".

But at the end of the day, Cuban said, "All of these projects have potential, and that's why they're getting so much money, and all of them have a reason to believe they're better than somebody else, that they're going to be successful."