Despite the steady rise in prices of bitcoin and its growing acceptability among some of the traditional investment circles, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett claims that he would "not spend $25" even if he was offered all the bitcoin in the world.
Buffett, who has been unsparing in his criticism of cryptocurrencies, made the fierce remarks against bitcoin on April 30, during the annual shareholders' meeting of Berkshire.
According to Buffett, he does not believe in investing in bitcoin as "it does not produce anything". An asset, he added, has a real value only if it can "deliver something to somebody".
“If you said… for a 1 percent interest in all the farmland in the United States, pay our group $25 billion, I’ll write you a check this afternoon...(For) $25 billion I now own 1% of the farmland. (If) you offer me 1 percent 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," he said.
"The apartments are going to produce rent and the farms are going to produce food," Buffett added.
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Despite the criticism from industry veterans, bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency in terms of market size, has maintained a price ranging from $30,000 to more than $60,000.
A section of experts believe the price may breach the $100,000 by next year. In an apparent reference to such claims, Buffet said, "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."
Bitcoin lacks real as "there is only one currency that is accepted", the veteran investor explained. "You can come up with all kinds of things — we can put up Berkshire coins... but in the end, this is money,” Buffet said as he held 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," he added.
Apart from Buffett, Berkshire's Vice Chairman Charlie Munger also slammed bitcoin, calling it "stupid and evil".
“In the first place, it’s stupid because it’s still likely to go to zero. It’s evil because it undermines the Federal Reserve System... and third, it makes us look foolish compared to the Communist leader in China. He was smart enough to ban bitcoin in China," Munger said.
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