Mark Cuban's One Rule for Investing in Bitcoin

Bitcoin is hotter than ever. Is it time for the average investor to get some skin in the game?

Only if you've got cash to spare, says Mark Cuban, the billionaire investor and Shark Tank host.

"It’s still very much a gamble,” Cuban said of buying Bitcoin in a recent interview with Money. “It could go to $15,000 or zero and maybe both on the same day.”

The price of Bitcoin recently shot past $13,000, and experts are split on whether the cryptocurrency is a good investment or not. Several stocks are soaring on the rising fever, and the infamous Winklevoss twins have been minted "Bitcoin billionaires" thanks to its meteoric rise in valuation over the last year. There could be at least 200 Bitcoin billionaires in the world already, and some people are even selling off their own assets and betting on Bitcoin as a longterm strategy for wealth accumulation.

But old-schoolers like Vanguard’s Jack Bogle are saying you should avoid Bitcoin speculation "like the plague." Meanwhile, billionaire Thomas Peterffy of the brokerage Interactive Brokers recently warned that a Bitcoin futures market could lead to a “Lehman-brothers style collapse” of the whole financial system.

Cuban says he owns Bitcoin himself, along with another cryptocurrency, Ethereum—but with a net worth of roughly $3.3 billion, and assets like the Dallas Mavericks, he can afford to take some risks. Which is essentially his mantra right now on how regular people should approach Bitcoin.

“If it’s money you need to depend on and can’t afford to lose, don’t do it,” Cuban said. “If you have money you can gamble with, then it’s worth taking a shot.”