Billionaires Mark Cuban And Tyler Winklevoss Debate Bitcoin’s Complexity On Twitter

Billionaires Mark Cuban and Tyler Winklevoss engaged in an informal Twitter debate over the complexity of bitcoin.

Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks NBA franchise, appeared in an interview with Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano on April 15 and criticized bitcoin for not being user-friendly. According to Cuban, bitcoin is overly complex and won’t reach mass adoption until it’s easy enough for “grandma” to use.

Cuban highlighted other “peculiarities” of bitcoin, including May’s halving event and the underlying process of mining that maintains the cryptocurrency’s blockchain.

Tyler Winklevoss took to Twitter on April 17 to refute some of Cuban’s claims, pointing out that basketball is comparably peculiar and still managed mass adoption.

"There’s so many peculiarities to Bitcoin: the halving, the mining." –@mcuban

The rules of basketball are far more peculiar, but that doesn't seem to be holding it back. https://t.co/GO5O3luDtT

— Tyler Winklevoss (@tylerwinklevoss) April 17, 2020

Cuban replied to Winkelvoss’s tweet, arguing that bitcoin is far more complex than the game of basketball. He also alluded to bitcoin’s anonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto, whose identity is still a mystery more than a decade after the coin’s launch.

One was started by a guy named James in a gym with a peach basket and a ball to entertain kids. The other was started by a guy no one can find, that hundreds claim to be, with a computer and an algorithm to give millions something to argue about. Which is simple ? https://t.co/nfVS5A1ebq

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) April 17, 2020

Winklevoss, in turn, argued the majority of basketball fans enjoy the game without knowing the history or origin of the sport.

My bet is that if you took a poll of all the basketball fans that buy tickets to watch @dallasm games, less than 1% would know that the game they are watching was started by a guy named James trying to entertain kids and 0% would actually care.

— Tyler Winklevoss (@tylerwinklevoss) April 17, 2020

The two billionaires eventually came to an agreement that both bitcoin and basketball have superseded their origins.