Mark Cuban voices Serious Concerns about the Crypto Investment Space
August 14, 2021
The prices of cryptocurrencies and especially bitcoin continued to soar up even though the US Senate brought some distressing news. In that legislative body, its members rejected a bipartisan compromise related to the process of crypto taxation. That was a part of a much bigger infrastructure bill worth over 1 trillion USD. Yet, bitcoin in particular seemed unswayed by this development. The BTC token added nearly 20 percent to its price in the previous days, climbing to a point well over 46,000 USD. This is the best price result for digital currency in nearly three months. Other smaller digital currency networks also had a great period, headed by small groups of known tokens and some which are less famous. These include ethereum and dogecoin, but also uniswap.
Among these are some digital currencies that have made gains that surpass those of the bitcoin network. So, on the surface, it might seem like great days are ahead, regardless of what might be happening in the Senate or any other legislative space of the US. However, billionaire investor Mark Cuban does not think so. Instead, Cuban believes that Senat is messing with an industry that could revolutionize the tech landscape of the US. That is why he said that any slowdown in the crypto industry or even regulatory pressure will have disastrous consequences on the same business domain. He said that this might surmount to someone stopping e-commerce companies in 1995 when they were only starting to function. In turn, such a development would also have a strong and negative impact on cryptocurrencies and their combined price trajectory.
Crypto as a Growth Engine
Cuban was clear in assessing that the crypto domain holds the key for amazing economic growth inside of the US. That process is already taking place, but the billionaire believes that the present level of the combined cryptocurrency industry is far from its true potential, even in the immediate future, not to mention the entire decade or beyond that. Like in the case of esports and other digital ventures, where he also invests heavily, Cuban thinks that the key factor is the recognition of potential when the market is still in its infancy. That is why he recognizes 1995 as an important year, and wider period, for e-commerce.
Back then, a lot of people, as well as politicians who represented them, were afraid of misuses like credit card fraud and other issues. In that period, even years later, customer protection services applied at e-commerce vendors were slim or even completely missing. Even third-party financial service providers like PayPal, who could act as a barrier between the vendor and the customer, did not appear until a decade or more later. At the same time, legislators understood neither the internet nor its websites. Because of that, individuals easily equated website building as just a phase in the process of e-commerce, for example. That seems silly today, but Cuban is pointing to the issue of how crypto is assessed today by those who only marginally understand it.
Infrastructure Bill
All of the commotion, including Cuban’s statements, come from the Infrastructure bill that is currently under debate in the US. It is worth over 1 trillion USD and should be one of the cornerstones of President Job Biden’s administration in its first year. It has numerous elements, but the one that is gaining so much attention – and notoriety – in the crypto domain is one regarding the reporting of all cryptocurrency transactions. It is a part of the bill’s previous fundraising. The party alone could raise as much as an additional 28 billion USD through taxes in the US. However, one of its elements could be a heavy blow to the crypto industry. In the broadest terms, it sees crypto brokers offering information on all bitcoin transfers as well as other crypto fund movements.
Cuban, like many others, believes that it and the definition of a broker could cause chaos in the entire industry. Weeks of negotiation still left the crypto amendment in a deadlocked position. The same part of the legislation wants to clarify the language in the bill and expand the concept of a broker to companies including developers in the blockchain technological arena and cryptocurrency miners as well.
Shockwaves in the Community
The bill has a very controversial aura around it even before it enters the legislative circles. But, in recent weeks, it sent massive tremors through the community of cryptocurrency users, investors, and developers. Crypto lobbying tried what they could to give it more of the public limelight and make sure that these changes in the way regulatory and taxation bodies perceive crypto are not a stranglehold on the industry.
Experts believe that the proposals have the potential to drag the entire industry into a quagmire of reporting and tax payments that would be a disastrous process for all involved. Furthermore, the same invasive dragnet would be seriously damaging for each crypto transaction in the US, no matter where it originates.
Fears of Mark Cuban
Many feel that Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, explained the issue with the most clarity. By forcing so many reporting rules on developers in the US, as well as miners and other individuals and companies working in the broader crypto ecosystem, the country’s legislators are doing nothing besides pushing all of these entities, both personal and institutional, away from the same territories. Instead of having their HQs and teams in the US, these businesses will simply move into other, more hospitable countries and take the workforce with them, even if they stay in their current homes and work from there.
Here is where fears that Mark Cuban presented align perfectly with the sad reality of business operations: a problem at point A does not have to be a problem at point B. Thus, a business can easily today pick up and leave, especially if it works in the space of digital technologies. So, a heavy-handed regulatory policy will do nothing for the improvement of the digital development space, only push out that development to better shores. All the while, the price of BTC will suffer because of the negative press attention and general commotion this will generate in the public arena.