Mark Cuban Got ‘Really Disappointed’ by Ethereum: Here’s Why the Second-Largest Crypto Failed to Live Up to the Former Shark’s Hopes
August 31, 2026
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Mark Cuban once picked Ethereum as the cryptocurrency offering the highest upside potential. Today, the billionaire investor says he is deeply disappointed by how it has turned out.
In an Aug. 21 podcast with tech journalist Kara Swisher, Cuban weighed in on cryptocurrencies and a once-bullish narrative that didn’t unfold as he had anticipated.
Cuban acknowledged that he was “excited” by Ethereum’s smart contract functionality and believed it could have been put to better use in building new kinds of applications that supply data to other systems.
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Smart contracts are self-executing computer programs stored on a blockchain and run when preset conditions are met. They have been widely used to build decentralized finance applications.
“Like tracking the weather so I could buy weather insurance for a Mavs [Dallas Mavericks] game in case it snows, you know, that type of thing,” the former Shark Tank star said. “But it never really came to fruition.”
Cuban pointed out what he saw as a fundamental issue facing the industry—the problem of plenty.
“The biggest downfall of crypto has always been that the marginal cost to create a competitive blockchain is close to zero,” he stated. “And everybody just tried to play the same games. “How can I extract the most amount of money from a new blockchain?
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Cuban added that the idea of everyone creating their own blockchains was simply not feasible.
Cuban’s remarks stood in sharp contrast to what he said about Ethereum nearly five years ago.
During an interview with CNBC in Oct. 2021, he said that ETH has the most upside potential among cryptocurrencies. He added that Bitcoin is “better gold than gold,” but that he won’t recommend it over Ether.
In case you’re wondering, Cuban also lost faith in Bitcoin.
In May, the billionaire revealed he’d sold most of his Bitcoin as it didn’t turn out to be the “hedge” he expected. He added that Bitcoin behaved more like a high-beta tech stock than a safe haven.
Photo Courtesy: Kathy Hutchins on Shutterstock.com
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