Mark Cuban: ‘Crypto Going Through a Lull’ Like the Internet of the 2000s

American billionaire Mark Cuban took to Twitter to liken the current crypto market to the internet of the 2000s.

Cuban stated, “Crypto is going through the lull that the internet went through.” The entrepreneur further explained that in the crypto market, after the initial surge in dApps, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi), and play-to-earn gaming (P2E), there was an ‘imitation phase as chains subsidized the movement of those apps to their chains.’

Despite Cuban pointing towards a consolidating market of unique players, more users are expected to enter the crypto scene.

Can the entry of more crypto users strengthen the market?

We know that crypto’s comparison to the internet is nothing new. Earlier, on-chain analyst Willy Woo had compared the growth in crypto users to the growth in internet users since its inception. And, he has predicted that Bitcoin will have one billion users by 2025, similar to the 2005 internet, based on “projected worldwide bitcoin users expressed in internet years.”

While new crypto users can pump more liquidity into the system, the virtual asset market is lately witnessing a blood bath.

In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin briefly slid under $30,000, while crypto assets have lost $800 billion in cumulative market cap in just the past month.

However, despite the market weakness, Bitcoin Foundation Chairman Brock Pierce is optimistic. The billionaire also compared cryptocurrencies to the tech revolution of 1999 and 2000 and told Fox Business, “Many of these projects will go to zero, but many of them will become the eBays, the Amazons, the PayPal of our time and future, but with probably even greater success.”

Will smart contracts be the new driver?

According to Cuban, smart contracts will be the next driver in the crypto ecosystem. He commented, “What we have not seen is the use of smart contracts to improve business productivity and profitability. That will have to be the next driver.”

According to the Shark Tank investor, businesses will soon use smart contracts to gain a competitive advantage. And therefore, only unique chains ready to adapt to this will survive. While ‘copycats’ will fail, highlighting that not every chain needs NFT, DeFi, or even interoperability between chains.

After Ethereum spearheaded the second generation smart contract revolution, ‘killers’ like Binance Smart Chain, Solana, Algorand, and Cardano accelerated development to follow suit.

According to the total value locked on dApps, ETH has a TVL of $94 billion on its chain followed by $12 billion on Terra and $10.7 billion on Binance Smart Chain, as per data from DefiLlama.