Mark Kuban recently stated on platform X that a chip as an asset class could become a “new encrypted asset”. He refers primarily to the high-end GPU that supports artificial intelligence training and reasoning. As AI demand continues to rise, this type of hardware, originally considered depreciated equipment, is being reassessed by some market participants.
Focus on AI hardware
It is the judgement of the bank that computing hardware may not be just business purchases in the future, but may also be priced as configurable, tradable assets. In the past, chips were usually classified as inputs to equipment and their value would decline over time. However, following the rapid expansion of infrastructure demand, the market began to revisit the scarcity, lease value and cash flow capacity of the high-end GPU.
This statement quickly triggered reactions in the encrypted community. Some Bitcoin supporters argue that the chip does not have the same asset logic as Bitcoin. Pierre Rochard, the Bitcoin Advocate, stated that the chip manufacture did not have a bitcoin adjustment mechanism, nor was there a mechanism to halve it, so the two could not simply be compared.
The encrypted community filed a rebuttal.
The core view of opponents is that chips are still industrial products and that supply can increase as capital spending expands, while the pace of issuance and volume constraints are clearer. It was also seen as a sign of changes in market sentiment that such cross-asset analogies often occurred after the heat of the encrypted market fell.
The statement of Kuban, however, was not entirely separate from his long-standing observation of encrypted assets in the past. He was one of the more famous bitcoin skeptics in the United States in his early years. In 2019, he compared Bitcoin to a collection and indicated that he preferred to hold bananas because they had at least practical use. However, he also admitted at the time that bitcoin might have value storage functions.
Bitcoin's attitude has changed a lot.
Since then, the attitude of Kuban towards the encryption market has warmed up, especially with regard to the Ether factory. He has mentioned on several occasions that smart contracts and decentrized applications give Ethera a more practical and, in his view, have an advantage over TT money. At the same time, he saw Bitcoin as an asset similar to gold.
But in May this year, Kuban revealed that he had sold most of the bitcoin hold. The main reason given by him was that bitcoin had failed to demonstrate the macroshock properties he had originally expected. In a recent interview, Kuban also stated that while he still considered Bitcoin to be “better gold” in some respects, his follow-up was disappointing.