Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said that the NBA team will accept bitcoin beginning next year.
Dallas Mavericks to Accept Bitcoin ‘Next Season’
The billionaire entrepreneur and “Shark Tank” investor made the announcement on Twitter, responding to a question from a fan who asked when he would be able to use bitcoin to buy tickets to Mavericks home games.
Next season,” Cuban replied, referring to the 2018-2019 season. The NBA is currently midway through its 82-game 2017-2018 season, which began in October and will end in April, although the playoffs will continue through June.
Cuban did not go into further details, so it is not clear whether bitcoin will be the only cryptocurrency the team accepts or if other coins will be accepted as well.
It also remains to be seen how pervasive the team’s adoption of bitcoin will be. Will fans be able to pay for snack and gift shop purchases with bitcoin at stadium kiosks, for instance, or will cryptocurrency payments be restricted to online sales?
Finally, one wonders whether the Mavericks will join Overstock and select other firms in holding a portion of the cryptocurrencies they receive or whether they will convert the entire balance into USD at the point of sale.
Former Skeptic Mark Cuban Embraces Cryptoassets
In any case, the move marks yet another indication that Cuban — once a bitcoin skeptic — has begun to embrace this still-nascent technology. Last year, Cuban made a variety of investments in the cryptoasset space, ranging from investments in initial coin offerings (ICOs) to digital currency hedge funds to exchange-traded notes that track the price of bitcoin.
Though he once called cryptocurrency a bubble, Cuban said that he now recommends that “true adventurers” allocate up to 10 percent of their investments into bitcoin and ether while placing the rest in a conventional S&P 500 index fund.
Cuban has also said that he believes the recent launch of bitcoin futures is a positive development for the industry and could prove beneficial to the underlying spot markets.