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DOGE Bull Mark Cuban Talks Crypto, NFTs, And More In Community AMA

On January 29, Mark Cuban, the businessman and television personality, took to the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) to have a conversation with his audience and the crypto community online.

What Projects Does Mark Cuban Invest in?

The Ask Me Anything (AMA) session asked about Cuban’s thoughts on various crypto-related topics. Notably, his replies to the community suggested the importance of a project’s utility for the Shark Tank investor.

When asked about his thoughts on crypto, Cuban stated “I hate the speculation but love when there is utility,” similarly replying to a different question about on-chain finance “needs new ideas with more utility.” Additionally, he explained that Bitcoin’s Layer 2 solution aimed at scaling “doesn’t matter at all,” and emphasized his belief that “It’s applications with unique utility that matter.”

Cuban believes blockchain technology is here to stay but identifies two issues. The first concerns the existence of “too many blockchains,” and the second is the lack of an application that makes the technology “indispensable” for all generations.

For these reasons, the businessman thinks blockchain technology’s future is in the air but reaffirms that “it will always have a place.” However, he doesn’t consider blockchain security one of the biggest problems.

During the AMA session, the Shark Tank investor listed Polygon (MATIC), and Injective (INJ) as two projects he’s interested in outside the flagship cryptocurrency and the largest altcoin. When asked about his concerns on the project and growth of injective, Cuban said he didn’t have any, but he hopes “they do well” as he is an investor.

The Doge community took part in the questions, and Cuban admitted that he enjoys being part of the community. He also confirmed that The Dallas Mavericks continue to accept DOGE as a payment method.

What Emerging Technology Will Thrive in The Next Decade?

Regarding non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the investor explained “They are a collectible in most cases but can be used for other things,” and suggested that people should buy them to collect and not to speculate. Similarly, he expresses the challenges of selling these assets as he hasn’t found “a compelling aspect yet.”

Similarly, Cuban indicated that he is “not a fan” of tokenizing assets, such as sports teams and real estate, as he doesn’t think it “adds enough value.”

Cuban shared his views on the future of emerging technologies, affirming that he only sees Artificial Intelligence (AI) significantly impacting entrepreneurship in the next decade. Saying, “There will be two types of companies in the USA. Those who are great at AI and everyone else.”

Lastly, he was constantly asked about his thoughts on X owner and Tesla founder Elon Musk. He addressed their relationship by simply replying: “I don’t not get along with him. I don’t know him. He likes to talk shit on here and so do I.”

DOGE, DOGEUSDT

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Polygon ’s Blockchain Hard-Forked Without Warning To Closed-Source Genesis. Why?

What’s going on at Polygon? There seems to be a disturbance in the force over there. Is the Ethereum Layer 2 project alright? Are they doing everything above board or is there something sinister going on? Are they even decentralized if they can hard-fork just like that? Or did they follow the proper procedures and their critics are just uninformed? Can we even answer all of those questions? Probably not. But we can present all the information available and let you all get to your own conclusions.

Are we all supposed to just shut up and forget about the fact that over a week ago Polygon hard-forked their blockchain in the middle of the night with no warning to a completely closed-source genesis and still haven't verified the code or explained what is going on?

— Nathan Worsley (@NathanWorsley_) December 15, 2021

Let’s start with DeFi Builder Nathan Worsley’s accusation. Or is he just requesting information? Worsley recently tweeted, “Are we all supposed to just shut up and forget about the fact that over a week ago Polygon hard-forked their blockchain in the middle of the night with no warning to a completely closed-source genesis and still haven’t verified the code or explained what is going on?” 

Related Reading | Polygon: Ethereum’s Friend Is Looking To Make Big Strides

The “middle of the night” part is arguable since everyone is in different timezones and the Polygon blockchain is everywhere. However, he cleared up why the issue is important, “Until the code is verified there are no security guarantees about the billions of dollars in assets the chain currently secures.” And tweeted proof of everything else, “Here’s the commit that was hard-forked into production.”

Here's the commit that was hard-forked into production the middle of the nighthttps://t.co/qMunI4WZxx

— Nathan Worsley (@NathanWorsley_) December 15, 2021

To add credibility to his claim, DeFiance Capital’s Zhu Su joined the chorus asking for answers. “Was this to patch a critical bug? Why and how did this happen?”

Why am I seeing 100x more solana fud than discussion of this? Was this to patch a critical bug? Why and how did this happen? https://t.co/GhY3eTYNtm

— Zhu Su 🔺 (@zhusu) December 15, 2021

Polygon Responds And Shows Receipts

The criticism got a response from Polygon’s co-founder Mihailo Bjelic. “We’re making an effort to improve security practices across all Polygon projects,” Bjelic tweeted. “As a part of this effort, we are working with multiple security researcher groups, whitehat hackers etc. One of these partners discovered a vulnerability in one of the recently verified contracts. We immediately introduced a fix and coordinated the upgrade with validators/full node operators. No funds were lost. The network is stable.”

2/2 ..vulnerability in one of the recently verified contracts. We immediately introduced a fix and coordinated the upgrade with validators/full node operators. No funds were lost. The network is stable.

A detailed blog post coming, we are finalizing additional security analyses.

— Mihailo Bjelic (@MihailoBjelic) December 15, 2021

Ok, that sounds reasonable. Bjelic also promised, “A detailed blog post coming, we are finalizing additional security analyses.” A question lingered in the air, though. And crypto enthusiast J. Vicente Correa asked it in the most direct way possible, “U can fork the chain by yourself and take all my funds as u wish?”

Absolutely not.

The network is run by validators and full node operators, and we have no control over any of these groups. We just did our best to communicate and explain the importance of this upgrade, but ultimately it was up to them to decide whether they will do it or not.

— Mihailo Bjelic (@MihailoBjelic) December 15, 2021

And Polygon’s Mihailo Bjelic answers in the most political way possible. “Absolutely not. The network is run by validators and full node operators, and we have no control over any of these groups. We just did our best to communicate and explain the importance of this upgrade, but ultimately it was up to them to decide whether they will do it or not.”

Fair enough. However…

MATIC price chart on Poloniex | Source: MATIC/USD on TradingView.com
A Node Operator Has Some Criticism Of His Own

In the same thread, Polygon node operator Mikko Ohtamaa blasted the way the company handled the whole thing and also showed receipts. “Next time it happens can you at least announce a critical update to all Polygon node operators. Now this looks super unprofessional and confusing for the community. It was not mentioned or pinned down in any major channels or publications.”

He got a response from Polygon’s other co-creator, Sandeep Nailwal. “This was a security update, and hence pre-public-announcement could’ve escalated things.”

Hey Mikko, this was a security update, and hence pre-public-announcement could've escalated things.

— Sandeep – Polygon – NAE (NOT Abandoning ETHEREUM) (@sandeepnailwal) December 15, 2021

Ok, that makes sense. However, Ohtamaa had more complaints. “Some bug fixes” for a critical patch is not good. If there is a critical fix you co-ordinate with validators.” Plus, he reinforced Nathan Worsley’s original complaint. “It’s really obvious it is a critical security bug if you do unannounced no notice hard fork in the middle of a weekend.”

It's really obvious it is a critical security bug if you do unannounced no notice hard fork in the middle of a weekend. So do not be dumb and think your users are dumb.

— Mikko Ohtamaa 🐮 (@moo9000) December 15, 2021

According to Ohtamaa, “there are multiple open source projects out there” that have done similar operations in a more effective manner. Someone asked what could Polygon have done better. He answered with a series of simple steps. 

  1. Prepare the patch privately.
  2. A few days before, announce a critical security fix is coming. All node operators need to be prepared.
  3. Distribute the patch at the preset time.
  4. Not downplay the criticality of the patch and make idiot-looking release notes.

Related Reading | How Polygon Sealed A $400M Deal To Get Ahead In The Ethereum ZK Rollup Race

So, is there something rotten at Polygon? We will have to wait for the “detailed blog post” Bjelic promised to know for sure.

Featured Image by Mae Mu on Unsplash – Charts by TradingView