Billionaire Mark Cuban said that recent trading of bitcoin BTCUSD, 5.12% and other cryptocurrencies reminds him of the internet stock bubble of the late 1990s. Cryptocurrencies have been on a meteoric rise in recent months, as the market cap of bitcoin and other cryptos topped $1 trillion last week, according to CoinDesk.
Bitcoin, which has risen nearly 300% in the past 12 months, was mentioned by Cuban as an equity that could survive a potential bubble bursting among cryptocurrencies - similar to how companies like Amazon AMZN, -2.15% and EBay EBAY, -1.01% survived during the internet stock bubble. The internet stock bubble, also known as the dot-com bubble, saw U.S. internet-based company valuations grow exponentially in the 1990s before entering a bear market in the early 2000s. At that time, many dot-com stocks plummeted and the technology-dominated NASDAQ COMP, -1.25% crashed.
Cuban sold his company Broadcast.com to Yahoo at the height of the dot-com bubble in a deal valuing the company at over $5 billion. Cuban's comments come as the U.K.'s financial regulator issued a warning about the rise of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, saying people should "prepare to lose all your money."