In a Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting last Saturday, Warren Buffett gives his most expansive explanation for why he doesn’t believe in bitcoin.[1]
In this
video he tackles and compares Bitcoin to other asset and give emphasis on the returns.
Here is the interesting part of his speech on that video:
“Whether it goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don’t know. But the one thing I’m pretty sure of is that it doesn’t produce anything,” Buffett said. “It’s got a magic to it and people have attached magics to lots of things.”
“If you said… for a 1% interest in all the farmland in the United States, pay our group $25 billion, I’ll write you a check this afternoon,” Buffett said. ”[For] $25 billion I now own 1% of the farmland. [If] you offer me 1% of all the apartment houses in the country and you want another $25 billion, I’ll write you a check, it’s very simple. Now if you told me you own all of the bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25 I wouldn’t take it because what would I do with it? I’d have to sell it back to you one way or another. It isn’t going to do anything. The apartments are going to produce rent and the farms are going to produce food.
“Assets, to have value, have to deliver something to somebody. And there’s only one currency that’s accepted. You can come up with all kinds of things — we can put up Berkshire coins... but in the end, this is money,” he said, holding up a $20 bill. “And there’s no reason in the world why the United States government… is going to let Berkshire money replace theirs.”
Hearing his explanation, I just came to think that even though Buffet is seeing the importance of Bitcoin, without knowing how it works and why it gets its value, he tends to reject it. It is obvious how he repels the idea that Bitcoin had already been used as legal tender across the globe despite many governments not legalizing it as one. He is also down mining other countries saying that the only currency is $US (4:40 timeline of the video). I wonder if he is not born an American, would he say the same thing?
In the latter part of the article[1] is kinda interesting
“In my life, I try and avoid things that are stupid and evil and make me look bad in comparison to somebody else – and bitcoin does all three,” Munger said.
Actually, I read this as :
In my life, I try and avoid things that make me look stupid and evil and bad in comparison to somebody else – and bitcoin does all three,”
[1]
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/30/warren-buffett-gives-his-most-expansive-explanation-for-why-he-doesnt-believe-in-bitcoin.html