Key Takeaways:
Billionaire Mark Cuban sold most of his Bitcoin holdings, declaring the cryptocurrency "lost the plot" as a safe-haven asset during the Iran war.
Mark Cuban sold roughly 80% of his Bitcoin holdings, saying the cryptocurrency failed as an inflation hedge after gold surged to $5,000 while BTC dropped during the Iran war.
"I always thought it was a better version of gold than gold. Well, gold just blew up and went to $5,000; Bitcoin dropped," Cuban, the billionaire investor and former "Shark Tank" host, said on the Portfolio Players podcast with Front Office Sports.
Cuban's former crypto portfolio was 60% Bitcoin, 30% Ethereum and 10% smaller tokens, a structure he had previously justified by calling BTC a superior store of value to gold. At the time of his comments, Bitcoin was trading near $77,500, down roughly 38% from its October 2025 all-time high of $126,080, according to CoinGecko. Gold had pulled back to around $4,500 per ounce after briefly touching $5,000.
The sale from an investor with a net worth exceeding $10 billion, per Bloomberg, risks triggering retail panic selling and reinforcing bearish sentiment around crypto as a geopolitical hedge — just as data suggests Cuban may have exited near a local low.
Blockstream Chief Executive Officer Adam Back pushed back on Cuban's characterization, posting on X that the billionaire's claim "doesn't line up with data unless he sold the bottom." Since the Iran war began on Feb. 28, Bitcoin has risen roughly 7% to 10%, outperforming gold by about 35% on a relative basis, according to separate analyses cited by Yahoo Finance and crypto.news. The BTC/gold ratio has surged over the conflict period even as gold prices declined more than 15%.
Cuban did not disclose the exact timing of his sale. But selling into weakness is rarely optimal, analysts noted. Bitcoin briefly crossed $80,000 after the U.S. Congress advanced the Clarity Act, before settling back into the mid-$70,000 range.
Cuban softened his tone on Ethereum, saying "I'm not as disappointed in Ethereum," while dismissing memecoins and smaller tokens as "garbage." He said he still holds Ether for its utility, effectively recasting Bitcoin as the sole disappointment in a portfolio he once described as anchored by BTC.
The clash between Cuban's experience and the aggregate data comes as the broader market reassesses what Bitcoin actually hedges. A 2025 study found its inflation-hedging properties have been context-specific, working for CPI but not Core PCE, and have been disappearing since the COVID-19 outbreak. A separate 2021 study found Bitcoin was not a safe haven against financial uncertainty like that caused by the Iran war.
For Cuban, the verdict is final. "I don't know if it's dead, but I'd say it's disappointing," he said. "This might get some people upset: I think Bitcoin has lost the plot."
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
