Shark Tank's Mark Cuban Believes SEC's Take On Crypto Is 'Incredibly Hypocritical'

Mark Cuban, the owner of the basketball team Dallas Mavericks, has slammed the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its treatment of the crypto industry, calling it "incredibly hypocritical."

In an interview with "Altcoin Daily," published Sunday, the billionaire mocked the SEC's promises of protecting investors by giving an example of "pink sheets."

"The SEC is incredibly hypocritical. You know, they talk about trying to protect investors. You guys know what Pink Sheets are?... I just looked at this yesterday because two days ago because someone asked me. There are 16,750 Pink Sheet stocks... probably about [the same as] the number of tokens. There is no protection for anybody anywhere coming from the SEC, and that already falls under their purview," Cuban said.

Pink sheets are listings for stocks that trade over-the-counter (OTC) rather than on major exchanges in the U.S. like the NASDAQ or the NYSE and hence, are not heavily regulated.

Cuban also pointed out that the SEC has failed in its promise of protecting investors. He said there are "funds — ETFs and others — that incorporate stocks from countries that have no SEC-like protections at all."

"They don't care. You can still buy them and sell them. There are companies that are bought and sold on big exchanges that have no audit rights whatsoever. You don't have any idea if the numbers are accurate," Cuban added.

The billionaire also slammed the SEC's practices of implementing new policies, stating that it follows "regulation through litigation," i.e., changes in policies that are not brought by governance but by using litigation.

"They do what they did with Coinbase. They sue. And they'll sue you and their hope is that the result of the lawsuit then turns into precedent that they're able to use to enforce the way they want to enforce it," he said.

Cuban, who rose to fame after being on the panel of investors on "Shark Tank," added that SEC's unclear rules regarding cryptocurrencies are the reasons why there are more blockchain companies operating in Singapore, the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands and the Caymans.

"And now you look at the big companies like Coinbase [that] create jobs, and they're trying to do it right... they're getting f***ed... There was — I forget — which politician that said we should do it through the CFTC instead of the SEC, and they're right because the SEC they care more about hiring more lawyers than getting it done the right way," noted the television personality.

Cuban has invested in several crypto projects, including Lazy, a digital art gallery to display NFTs; DAOHQ, a marketplace on blockchain; OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace; Zapper, asset management firm for Decentralized Financel and Polygon, an Ethereum scaling solution.