'The Dumbest Sh*t Ever:' Mark Cuban Slams Metaverse Digital Real Estate Craze

Mark Cuban, the billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner and crypto enthusiast, has been extremely critical of cryptocurrency projects in recent months, calling digital land in the metaverse “the dumbest shit ever.” Cuban is an investor in Yuga Labs, which recently made $317 million in metaverse land sales.

Fortune reports that Mark Cuban, the billionaire investor and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has been critical of the cryptocurrency-backed metaverse in recent months. Speaking to the crypto-themed YouTube channel Altcoin Daily this past weekend, Cuban stated “The worst part is that people are buying real estate in these places. That’s just the dumbest shit ever.”

Cuban’s comments come as the popularity of the digital metaverse increases — but is yet to truly be defined. Currently, the term “metaverse” refers to a virtual world where people can hang out, play, and shop, and Facebook has been working hard on developing its version of it, even rebranding as Meta, but the digital realm has yet to fully take form.

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Mark Zuckerberg introduces Meta (Facebook)

Mark Zuckerberg is obsessed with the metaverse as Breitbart News reported earlier this year:

Business Insider reports that Mark Zuckerberg has become increasingly obsessed with the idea of a digital metaverse, to the point where many of his employees are becoming frustrated and annoyed with the concept. According to a former director-level employee who recently left the company, it’s “the only thing Mark wants to talk about.”

The same former employee stated that the company is “messaging the hell out of” the metaverse and is “spinning up teams that are metaverse specific.” One team will reportedly reach across all others within the company and inform them that there is a “metaverse playbook.”

Some employees are reportedly confused by the shift towards metaverse technology. One current employee told Business Insider: “It’s basically fomenting disorganization and anxiety. People don’t really seem to know what to deliver or what to work on because there is still no coherent strategy.”

Metaverse platforms such as Sandbox and Decentraland have also grown in popularity, allowing investors to buy land as an NFT which can be developed with virtual buildings or resold on marketplaces such as OpenSea.

Companies including Warner Music Group, Atari, Samsung, and Adidas have all bought digital land, however, Cuban remains unconvinced. Cuban stated that the central claim of metaverse land speculators that scarcity will make the digital plots valuable does not seem true to him.

“It’s not even as good as a URL or an ENS [Ethereum naming service], because there’s unlimited volumes that you can create,” he said during the interview. Despite being an investor in Yuga Labs, which owns popular NFT collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks, Cuban said that he was not a fan of the company’s recent land sale which raised approximately $317 million.

“I still thought it was dumb to do the real estate. That was great money for them, you know, but that wasn’t based off a utility,” he said.