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Mark Cuban wants in on the cryptocurrency boom even if it turns out hes right that bitcoin is in a bubble.

Cuban is investing in 1confirmation, a fund that plans to raise $20 million to invest in blockchain-based companies, the tech billionaire said in an interview. Venture capital firm Runa Capital is among other investors, and its technical advisors include Andreessen Horowitz board partner Balaji S. Srinivasan and programming language JavaScript founder Brendan Eich.

I have always looked at blockchain as a foundation platform from which great applications can be built, Cuban said in an Aug. 19 email response to questions. Hopefully we can find a few.

Runa Capital principal Nick Tomaino was an early employee at digital currency exchange Coinbase Inc. and runs the cryptocurrency-focused blog The Control. They plan to differentiate 1confirmation from the slew of digital currency hedge funds that have sprung up recently by taking a page from the venture-capital play book.

Rather than investing in digital tokens through initial coin offerings or in the secondary market,1confirmation plans to invest from $100,000 to $500,000 in early stage companies before their ICO, and help those companies develop their product. Once the startup is ready to issue an ICO, the fund hopes to negotiate a discounted price.

Its a more cautious approach to the frenzy that has consumed the space this year, with startups raising hundreds of millions of dollars in days, or even minutes, with little real business applications besides a white paper and a website. Startups had raised $1.8 billion in ICOs as of last week, according to Coindesk.

The fund will focus investments in projects that help developers build decentralized applications, rather than those aimed at end users, on the belief that the sector isnt mature enough for blockchain applications to be adopted on a mass scale.

A number of funds focused on blockchain companies and their tokens have opened in the past year as bitcoins price more than tripled and cryptocurrencies market capitalization surpassed $100 billion. Polychain Capital, founded by another Coinbase alum, Blockchain Capital and Pantera Capital are some examples.

Cuban, who is a majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and star of startup investing theme show Shark Tank, tweeted in June that bitcoin was in a bubble, causing the cryptocurrency to drop in price. Cuban says thats beside the point given the developing underlying technology.

1Confirmation would be Cubans second foray into cryptocurrencies as he also plans to invest in tokens sold by his portfolio company Unikrn. Cuban says he plans to invest on a third crypto-related project in the future, as well as potentially buying crypto currencies, which he doesnt currently own.

Its hard to establish any intrinsic value for bitcoin or any of the the cryptocurrencies. Ifeveryone continues to tell their grandparents, cousins and co-workers to buy,the price can go a lot higher as there is a definable, finite amount, but if the number of buyers dry up or there are a few massive sellers we could see under $1,000 again, Cuban said. None of this has anything to do with the applications that can be built with blockchain. The question is whether great companies can be financed and built and I think the answer is yes.

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Bitcoin Skeptic Mark Cuban to Invest in Cryptocurrency ...

A senior official forSouth Africa's central bank has saidit's "too risky" for the institution to launch its own cryptocurrency.

Speaking during theStrate GIBS FinTech Innovation Conference 2017 on Monday, the deputy governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Francois Groepe, commented on developments in the fintech space, taking a particular focuson blockchain and distributed ledgers.

According to regional news sourceITWeb, Groepe suggested that the central bank has an open mind on the question of issuing its own digital currency. That said, he struck a cautious note about the short-term prospects of doing so.

"Virtual currencies have the potential of becoming widely adopted," he told attendees, going on to say:

"However, for the central bank to issue virtual currencies or cryptocurrencies in an open system will be too risky for us. This is something we really need to think about."

Groepe's comments come almost a year to the day after the South African Reserve Bank indicated that it would adopt an open perspective on the tech even leaving the door open to applications of its own.

"We are willing to consider the merits and risks of blockchain technology and other distributed ledgers," the bank's governor, Lesetja Kganyago, said at the time.

Other major financial players in the country, including its central securities depository, have also moved to investigate possible uses of blockchain.

South African randsimagevia Shutterstock

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South Africa's Central Bank: It's 'Too Risky' to Launch a Cryptocurrency - CoinDesk