2nd richest man Warren Buffet said Bitcoin will end up badly.
Yeah, while Warren Buffet is a brilliant investor, he is not from this technological generation. I want to write a bit and vent about why Warren Buffet isn't right about everything and why he couldn't be more wrong about Bitcoin. He doesn't understand something like Bitcoin. And no, I am not just saying it because "he's an old man and just doesn't understand it." That's only a small reason, there are many other factors at play. It appears as if he takes it at face value and says "oh this internet thing people are buying are dumb! It's just an internet thing, it produces no value, why buy it?" when obviously Bitcoin is much more than that.
Chamath Palihapitiya put it best when he talks about Warren Buffet's negative comments on Bitcoin. Warren Buffet himself said to define a circle of competency and stay within that circle. As Chamath said, Bitcoin is not in Warren Buffets circle of competency. It's actually not even in the same world as his circle of competency. It is an error for him to comment on Bitcoin as if it is just some bubble with no utility and no value. Bitcoin is a brand new invention that has only been around for the last 9 years. Even with Warren Buffet's investing expertise, the world is significantly different now than what it was when he was just starting out. Mainly because of the internet. Information spreads much more quickly and trends catch on near instantaneously. Frankly, the generation that was born with the internet around (or was a young adult when the internet was taking off) is vastly different than any of the generations before.
This millennial generation would much rather invest in Bitcoin than invest in gold. A very large amount of gold's value is purely from speculation, while a fraction of that value is actually from industrial use cases. The younger generation will continue to invest in Bitcoin over gold because that is what we have grown up with. Digital things in an interconnected, digital world. We are used to this and actually prefer this over anything else because it is just plain better. That is why so many industries have been disrupted by the internet (taxis [Uber], phonebooks [Facebook, Google], television [Netflix, Hulu], Landlines [cellphones/smartphones], encyclopedias [Wikipedia], etc). The younger generation adopts this technology first, then everyone else follows. The new paradigms then slowly work its way back in time to the older generations and they begin to use it after years and years of it being around. Some actually never change.
The invention of the internet has irreversibly changed the world and therefore the way that every single person thinks. Bitcoin is the same exact way, and millennials love it. Bitcoin is disrupting a much larger industry and because of that, it does have a huge target on its back. Thank's to Bitcoins anti-fragility it has been able to grow and thrive. It will continue to do so as more young (<18) people grow older and pick Bitcoin over gold, and the older generation eventually does the same. This happens with every. single. technological innovation/trend.
