Mark Cuban, who just called bitcoin a bubble, says he plans to invest in Unikrn.
Unikr was Founded in 2014, in Seattle Washington. Unikrn is an e-sports betting platform that has already raised $10m from investors also including Ashton Kutcher, Elisabeth Murdoch and 500 Startups, to let anyone in the world bet with "Unikoins," the firm's own digital token, or with fiat money in Australia and the UK.
Cuban spoke with CoinDesk this week, saying “Growth in gambling is going to accelerate. Unikrn is better positioned than any other company to leverage that growth not only with their core business, but with blockchain. The ICO opportunity is a perfect fit.”
An initial coin offering is a fundraising process for blockchain-based projects that allows investors to own part of a project through a digital network token. Start-ups in the blockchain world often find this method of fundraising more attractive than venture capital funding for the speed and amount they can raise — on June 12 a project called Bancor raised the equivalent of about $150 million within two hours.
Cuban tweeted earlier this month that he thought bitcoin was in a "bubble", – and the price of Bitcoin fell significantly immediately thereafter.
Yet some digital currency watchers warn of too much enthusiasm for blockchain projects that have yet to show practical application.
William Mougayar, who assembled a Token Summit in New York City in May, has denounced the last several weeks of millions of dollars in fundraising through initial coin offerings.
Other well-known investors are still betting on the cryptocurrency industry in a more traditional way. A bitcoin start-up called Blockchain said last Thursday that it has raised $40 million in a funding round led by venture capital firm Lakestar, Alphabet's investment arm GV and billionaire Richard Branson.
High demand for initial coin offerings last week clogged the network of ethereum, while prices for ethereum briefly fell from above $300 to 10 cents on one exchange, showing how undeveloped the young digital currency world is.