Mark Cuban calls token valuations "inflated" shortly after NFT mint

Shortly after a limited edition non-fungible token release, entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has called into question the valuations in the NFT space, as well as those in half a dozen other asset classes.

Called “The RollUp 2021,” Cuban dropped the NFTs on Wednesday on Rarible, announcing the release in a Tweet:

Look what I found! The RollUp 2021 collectible https://t.co/EexbU3DNFy #rarible #ethereum #nonfungible #digitalasset #nft via @rariblecom

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) January 27, 2021

Describing the NFTs — which feature a half dozen-frame animation of Cuban awkwardly gyrating his hips and shoulders while holding what appears to be a yoga mat and laptop in a Dallas Mavericks photo studio — as “halfhearted” would be charitable, but they sold out in short order nonetheless, including two going to whale wallet turn Twitter personality 0x_b1, who has taken an interest in NFTs as of late. 

In listing the NFTs Cuban, who has famously waffled when it comes to his public statements on cryptocurrencies, also revealed that he has some significant decentralized finance and Ethereum holdings. On-chain sleuths were quick to investigate the listing, and found two closely-related wallets containing over 1000 ETH, staked Aave, and SUSHI, as well as smaller amounts of dozens of other projects. Cuban appear to acknowledge that the wallets were his in another Tweet:

I definitely got my share of shitcoins lol.

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) January 28, 2021

While the cryptoTwitter community was taking a victory lap at the prospects of an influential billionaire holding some of their bags, Cuban did pour some cold water on the mania. Just a day after selling his own NFTs, Cuban appeared to question whether the high-prices NFTs have been attracting are sustainable. 

When asked on CNBC this morning about if the current hubbub surrounding the runs on heavily shorted stocks worried him, he said he’d “hedged the heck out of my portfolio, absolutely it has me worried.”

“We’re seeing speculation everywhere, because as assets have inflated, you’ve seen it across a whole range of assets, whether its cryptocurrency, whether its trading cards, whether its nonfungible tokens, you know, whether its housing, when you’ve got such low interests rates you’re gonna get appreciable assets inflating,” he said.

The statement seems to imply that his dip into DeFi and NFTs is more of an experiment — building on a previous Tweet where he said he likes to “try all this stuff out.”

In fact, his long-term view on the markets as interest rates rise over the next decade is a distinctly gloomy outlook, as he told CNBC:

“Then people will have different decision criteria and that will certainly deflate, I don’t want to call it a bubble because it’s reality given interest rates, but there will be a deflation of some sort in those appreciable assets, and it will be scary when that happens.”