13 ms·

Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

122 points by RickJWagner 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tmarice 6y ago
Those grapes sure are sour.
fallat 6y ago
I...what. What kind of comment is that? It's just a meaningless remark.
sschueller 6y ago
"And I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth" You mean like cash? I'm sorry, I'm sure Warren is a nice guy but that picture reminds me of the Dukes in the movie Trading Places [1] with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Places https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Places
- guerrilla 6y ago
  He probably does. In Sweden, everything is going cashless in the name of convenience and cracking down on tax avoidance.
  - sschueller 6y ago
    The big tax avoiders don't horde cash.
    - passtheglass 6y ago
      It's for people who take cash in hand.
    - guerrilla 6y ago
      They mean black taxis, drug dealing, unlicensed second-hand stores, etc.
  - andrepd 6y ago
    Another example of something which could be good but it's not because of surveillance.
  - Qluxzz 6y ago
    Swede here. I cant even remember the last time I used cash. Used to get it from my grandmother for christmas but now they send it to me digitally as well. It was always a pain to get cash since you needed to find a place to deposit them into your account, and most banks don't even handle cash today. Most of all I hate getting change, people look at you funny here if you say keep the change in a regular store.
    - frereubu 6y ago
      My mum only just stopped giving me cheques...
- maxqin1 6y ago
  When was the last time you tried to move a million in cash? It's not that easy...
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    Yup; in $100 bills it weighs 10 kilos already.
  - sschueller 6y ago
    1 bundle of 1,000 CHF (1,112.51 USD) notes is 100,000 CHF which is only 1cm thick [1]. So 10 would be 10cm which easily fits in a small bag. [1] https://www.bielertagblatt.ch/nachrichten/wirtschaft/eine-million-schweizer-franken-passen-ins-kleinste-fach https://www.bielertagblatt.ch/nachrichten/wirtschaft/eine-mi...
    - maxqin1 6y ago
      Thanks for the tip!
    - SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
      But you would not be able to collect the cash from a bank without all kinds of due diligence, or process alarms going off.
      - sschueller 6y ago
        In Switzerland it used to be quite easy as the money belongs to you and you can do with it what you want. The only issue should be depositing large sums. If the banks make it harder and harder to get your money out then of course things like bitcoin are getting more popular.
        SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
        I can't actually speak for Switzerland, it does have a reputation for "no questions asked" banking. Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, "Know Your Customer", "Due Diligence" and other Anti-Money-Laundering measure are important. (1) I think your last point is better phrased as "If the banks make it harder and harder to get your money out in bulk, without proof that your transaction is legal; then of course things like bitcoin will be used for the illegal transactions. And as a result the regulators will sooner or later regulate those too". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_diligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_diligence
- altcognito 6y ago
  Ransomers don’t choose cash first, they choose Bitcoin, because they know it is safe.
  - Valakas_ 6y ago
    Also traceable.
  - stiltzkin 6y ago
    Bitcoin is not fungible, ransomers choose Monero.
- NicoJuicy 6y ago
  The logistics of moving cash is a problem on it's own.
- betterunix2 6y ago
  Not like cash. Collecting a cash ransom is risky since the police will watch the location where the ransom will be received. Receiving a cash ransom electronically is pointless since the account can be frozen the moment the victim is free. With Bitcoin, you can be anywhere when you receive the ransom, it cannot be frozen, and you can transact in Bitcoin far from any jurisdiction where you might be arrested.
- antidaily 6y ago
  A nice guy! The Dukes! You disrespectful shit.
- frereubu 6y ago
  The Proceeds of Crime Act in the UK makes it a duty for banks to know where large deposits come from. You walk into a bank where you haven't been depositing large sums of cash on a regular basis, with a clear rationale for having it (e.g. pre-Covid coffee shops), and you will very likely be asked to demonstrate where it came from. If you can't you're likely to have to forfeit the cash.
- usrusr 6y ago
  How many big computer sabotage extortion cases can you list that were handled by cash handover? That's an entire industry that simply did not exist prior to decentralised cross-boarder electronic value transfer. How long until this spreads to 20th century extortion schemes like point of sale product poisoning threats that never really picked up because transfer we such a headache?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
zpeti 6y ago
In other news, the Bloomberg Agriculture Index (price of food) is hockey-sticking: https://twitter.com/KarelMercx/status/1387108408139161600 https://twitter.com/KarelMercx/status/1387108408139161600 At the least, bitcoin is a possible way to protect against this, if you think it's a risk.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- throwaway6734 6y ago
  How do you deal with deflation?
  - chii 6y ago
    They don't see deflation as a problem - bitcoin is designed to deflate.
  - zpeti 6y ago
    How do you deal with TVs increasing in size or dropping in price for the last 40 years? How do you deal with computers dropping in price for the last 40 years? Have these industries had issues with deflation?
reedf1 6y ago
The context of the quote: > I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth... So, I think I should say modestly that the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interest of civilization. I find it strange to criticize an asset for how it gets used in extremis. I feel like the same criticism could be levied against the dollar.
- maxqin1 6y ago
  Except the primary use of the dollar is good. The same can't be said about the primary use for Bitcoin (which is, at best, speculation).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - neals 6y ago
    Have you traveled? Enough places where the dollar is not the national currency but still accepted and used for purchasing drug and weapons.
    - maxqin1 6y ago
      I'm not familiar with foreign drug and weapons markets, but even so, That is still a significant minority compared to USD as a whole. BTC as a whole is used for just that and gambling.
      - adamhp 6y ago
        I'm not even pro-crypto really, but you keep making this wild claim without substantiating it. You're speculating anecdotally on the majority usage pattern of Bitcoin.
        maxqin1 6y ago
        Come on, are you really going to argue this well-known fact without providing any examples to the contrary? Well guess what, I have a Q story and I'll sell it for your BTC!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
maxqin1 6y ago
Working together is in the best interest of humans. Humans require trust to operate. A system designed around mistrust is inherently against our nature.
- DSingularity 6y ago
  Designed around mistrust? Surely you mean motivated by distrust in the financial system? You know, the same financial system that launders cartel money, rigs interest markets against the poor, and crashes housing markets to make pensioners go broke?
  - maxqin1 6y ago
    The moral problems exist for a minority of USD, but a majority of BTC.
  - apples_oranges 6y ago
    That's why there are control systems in place. Institutions. Their effectiveness may be debatable, but by embracing Bitcoin (imho) we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater for not a good enough reason. But what do I know. For me this whole Coin-Thing looks like Online Poker did 20 years ago. People like to gamble and they like Robin Hood type of stories..
- kebman 6y ago
  I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Do you consider the middleman banking system a sign of trust? How about the invasion of privacy required by the state in order to collect taxes? It used to be that humans could exchange value without third parties. The third party was introduced exactly because of mistrust, and eventually this practice grew so widespread and big that it became a new industry all on its own. Cryptocurrency cuts out that third party, and makes business a one-to-one interaction again, where contracts can even be fully automated. Of course all third parties out there dislike this, but there might still be a silver lining for them. For the state, all Bitcoin transactions are visible on the blockchain, for instance. This makes Bitcoin inherently less useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth... And for the banks it makes the transfer of big amounts of value extremely safe (contrast this to what's going on in South Africa at the moment, where value transports are being violently targeted by cutthroat bandits). It also opens up a wholly new business opportunity for them if they start exchanges and on- and offramps for crypto. Already new organizations are being made that grant interest on loaning out or staking crypto, for instance.
smt88 6y ago
If you think of all investments as a bet, what are you betting on when you buy crypto? In my opinion, you're betting that crypto will be useful as an exchange of value, which means the people exchanging it are either: A) criminals or B) living in a failed state. Personally, if crypto becomes so widely used that it justifies its market caps, that means a lot of states have failed, and I don't want to live in (or bet on) that world. It's also scary that some very rich and powerful people are betting against our society continuing to be viable.
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  Crypto right now is more like something people are speculating on, but it's like a collectible piece of art or something. It's cool as an idea, but that's about it. It's not going to become the currency of a failed state, there are far more power efficient and opaque ways of doing things. Basically states print money anyway, and just hand it to the banks.
  - smt88 6y ago
    > It's not going to become the currency of a failed state, there are far more power efficient and opaque ways of doing things. It's already being used as a proxy for USD in some failed states (which is exactly what every stablecoin's value proposition would be). It's certainly not widespread, but it makes sense in a society where you don't actually need/want to convert to fiat to transact.
- Applejinx 6y ago
  Scary but plausible. I never assume that the richest and most powerful of people are also the most moral, ethical, or even viable. Seems to me it's more likely to go the other way, and that the richest and most powerful of people are that way because they're incredibly toxic and to them, even that is not nearly enough. To someone like that, the only question about bitcoin is 'can I gain something off this in some way no matter who or what it destroys in the process?' Sounds like a natural match to me, and so I'm unsurprised that some of the richest and most powerful people are all in on bitcoin. It's just that they have no intention of bitcoin, or society, ending up viable. They see a way to game it. Period.
henvic 6y ago
I just posted an article that talks about how awful Bitcoin is. One thing to have in mind is that many who are contrary to Bitcoin love the legal tender we are forced to use... which is also awful. * https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/ https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/
mratsim 6y ago
Another arrow for the Four Horsemen of the infocalypse: - child pornographers, - terrorists, - drug dealers, - money launderers / organized crimes
KingOfCoders 6y ago
I'm not a fan of Bitcoin, but often "contrary to the interest of civilization" means "contrary to the interest of me".
- maxqin1 6y ago
  Yes, and yes. But, if Berkshire wanted to they could pump BTC to new heights and undoubtedly make a profit.
  - DSingularity 6y ago
    Doubt they are rich enough to corner the BTC market if that is what you are suggesting.
    - betterunix2 6y ago
      Berkshire Hathaway's market capitalization is more than $600B, so actually they could corner the market on it if they really wanted to (though it would probably become obvious that they were trying that long before it happened). They have no interest in Bitcoin because, from their previous comments on it, it produces nothing and they only invest in productive assets.
    - solveit 6y ago
      All they have to do is invest a billion or so in bitcoin, announce it (as they are required to), then sell it. It would be relatively trivial.
      - maxqin1 6y ago
        Exactly. But these guys are too old for the short game at this point. They are about legacy. And that should make these statements hit that much harder.
    - kamyarg 6y ago
      I think what the parent comment suggests is "Seal of approval" situation, similar thing that happened with Tesla buying bitcoin caused price surge. When a well known entity invests in crypto, trust in crypto goes up. Berkshire buying bitcoin would definitely make me buy more bitcoin.
read_if_gay_ 6y ago
> Warren Buffett: "I knew there’d be a question on bitcoin or crypto and I thought to myself, well, I watch these politicians dodge questions all the time … The truth is, I’m going to dodge that question. Because the truth is, we’ve probably got hundreds of thousands of people that are watching this that own bitcoin. And we’ve probably got two people that are short. So, we’ve got a choice of making 400,000 people mad at us and unhappy and making two people happy. And it’s just a dumb equation." > Charlie Munger: “Those who know me well are just waving the red flag at the bull. Of course, I hate the bitcoin success. And I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth. Nor do I like shoveling out a few extra billions and billions and billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air. So, I think I should say modestly that the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interest of civilization." That's all they have to say about this? None of this is particularly insightful (in fact I think it's disappointingly devoid of interesting insight). I don't see why this is on the frontpage.
- maxqin1 6y ago
  It's very interesting, actually. I interpreted as "Bitcoin is bad but the cult of Bitcoin is nuts so we have to be careful about what we say." What's more interesting is how the Bitcoin investor club is managing to delude themselves even with inputs from real proven financiers.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    > the cult of Bitcoin is nuts This is "very interesting" to you? It's completely obvious, is it not? Same for the other (non-)criticisms they leveled. I just don't see the newsworthiness, even if everyone's just circlejerking against BTC.
  - pydry 6y ago
    As Upton Sinclair once said, it is difficult to get a man to understand something if the value of his crypto stash depends upon him not understanding it.
bitcoin01 6y ago
Remember that Coca-Cola is responsible for one of the biggest health issue of our civilisation: obesity, and Berkshire invested heavily in it.
- qzw 6y ago
  That’s why I only drink Pepsi.
- betterunix2 6y ago
  Warren Buffet has given many interviews on the topic, and on the topic of Berkshire's investments in tobacco companies. His view is basically that as long as those industries are legal he has a responsibility to his shareholders to invest in them because it is so profitable to do so. He has also summarized his views on Bitcoin many times -- he has no interest in investing in it because it is not a productive asset (the same reason he does not invest in gold).
  - programmarchy 6y ago
    Ah, so he's merely being _responsible_ by investing in the destruction of public health. What a clown.
    - betterunix2 6y ago
      Responsible to his shareholders, who want a maximum return on their investment. He may be a clown, but the fact is that he is very good at giving his shareholders a return. These industries are legal. If you think they should be abolished, fine -- but don't go around getting angry that people are investing in legal businesses that produce popular, if harmful, products. Until these industries are illegal, someone is going to invest in them, and because these industries are extremely popular those who invest in them will see their wealth expand.
  - bitcoin01 6y ago
    I call it hypocrisy.
JKolios 6y ago
It's just one more investment vehicle/speculative asset among thousands. What is the specific factor about Bitcoin that makes it "contrary to the interest of civilization"? Are these financiers telling us that the financialisation of literally everything on the planet and in low orbit might actually have negative externalities?
- DSingularity 6y ago
  Ironic right?
- pydry 6y ago
  * The titanic carbon footprint. * Its use in facilitating illegal transactions. * The fact that unlike cash it's used (as opposed to speculated with) for little else other than illegal transactions.** This pretty much covers it ^^ ** Yes, I'm aware. Not all prohibited transactions are bad. Donating to wikileaks is good. The fact it is used for not much else other than illegal transactions would seem to me to be the biggest risk to its value. Regulatory crackdown will be coming sooner or later and when it does, there's gonna be investor tears.
- Applejinx 6y ago
  These are the ones who told us the financial instruments that crashed the world in 2008, had negative externalities, before they had crashed the world. Seems plausible that these particular ones would be prepared to both spot, and tell us about, another impending disaster.
DSingularity 6y ago
Lol. So the relatively few mega-wealthy — who hoarded practically all the USD in the world — are angry that the relatively-poor have come up with a new system of value within which they are now relatively-rich? Well maybe the wealthy class should have left some for the rest of the people. Maybe the wealthy shouldn’t have fleeced every market they cornered as aggressively. Maybe they should not have constantly avoided providing healthcare, education, maternal/paternal, and quality-of-life benefits because they would cost them a few percent of annual profits. Is it a wonder that so many hope that mankind abandon the USD for BTC with such force that half the billionaires become millionaires and the other half go broke?
- robjan 6y ago
  Cryptocurrency has not solved the problem of a few people owning the majority of the assets. The problem has just been recreated with different people.
- mathw 6y ago
  Won't happen. The billionaires will just buy Bitcoin. Their investment managers probably already are.
- stiltzkin 6y ago
  Not BTC but central banks now are planning their own digital currencies, BTC will be the first and old legacy cryptocurrency where it will hold as value until it stop mining BTC. BTC will be replaced by other digital currency in the future eventually.
xwdv 6y ago
One of the shocking things is how much cryptocurrency has poisoned the minds of youth who see it as their easy path to riches. Young people simply don’t want to work anymore, everyone is planning to retire very soon and a job is only a temporary inconvenience while they wait for their crypto coins to moon in value and make them millionaires set for life. The truth is while many people did get very rich getting in early on the cryptocurrency wave, less and less people these days are actually growing meaningful wealth by investing in crypto. Eventually reality will catch up and people will not be able to afford keeping a bunch of coins with questionable prospects, and when they begin liquidating all at once I guarantee some people will become very poor, poorer than they could ever imagine.
- SXX 6y ago
  "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
  - dTal 6y ago
    --Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907 (in case you thought it was someone ancient or famous)
    - SXX 5y ago
      Thanks. It was actually one of quotes that I was certain is originated from greek philosophers. Yeah it seems like it's my turn to cite something incorrectly.
- nahuel0x 6y ago
  It's a sign of decadence, the question "what's my contribution to society?" is out of sight. Becoming rich by the crypto lottery should not be seen as an achievement with pride, but as the shame of becoming a harmful parasite.
supergirl 6y ago
regardless of this, I think there is no future for cryptocurrency as it is today, anyway. it can't remain so unregulated as it is now. either corporations will take over and legitimize it but this means it will become centralized and owned by big tech. or, it will remain the wild west that it is now, for a while, and then gov will shut it down. cryptocurrencies are the same as torrents. only popular while unregulated. but this only lasts until some big player decides to stop it
makach 6y ago
Heck. I am not a fan of bitcoin but I think that statement is flawed. The technology is young and developing. Instead of killing it/or wanting it dead, work with its potential.
- bidirectional 6y ago
  As someone without much knowledge of the area, is it developing? Bitcoin seems very staid and featureless compared to something like Ethereum, does it deserve to have the biggest market cap just because it was first? Also is it wise to advocate for a future where the richest people in the world will just be whoever hung out on the right forums in 2011? At least the current occupants of the Forbes list mainly built companies.
whywhywhywhy 6y ago
If the ability for normal people of every background and income to build wealth and savings wasn't being eroded at every step, maybe we wouldn't need it. Your savings are eroded by inflation, even if you own a property you're usually just renting the land it's on long term and taxed more for even having the audacity to buy property to begin with. The more you pick away at the fabric the more everything feels like a scam stacked against you. You've built a world where Bitcoin despite not being "real" is the only real store of value, there will only ever be 21 million...
- rjmunro 6y ago
  Why is buying companies and property (or small parts of them, i.e. stocks) not a "real store of value"?
  - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    If it's a leasehold, you don't really own anything, you're basically just renting with more security. Even freeholds sometimes you don't really own the land, just again renting it extremely long term. 1 bitcoin will always be worth 1 bitcoin and there will only ever be 21 million of them.
    - rjmunro 5y ago
      Yeah, don't buy leasehold. 1km² of land will always be worth 1km² of land and there will only ever be 500 million km² of them. But you can use the land.
- mathw 6y ago
  What value? Bitcoin goes up and down like a drunken rollercoaster and it's based on "look my computer did some maths that accomplishes nothing!" as its representation of worth. It's got no more value than conventional currencies no longer backed by the gold standard (did that ever mean anything either?) Never forget that money is largely illusory, solely a social construct, and while that's a powerful thing there is nothing here that makes Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency any more worthy than the US dollar or the Euro.
febeling 6y ago
Berkshire like big bags love civilization. It’s the best. Trust them.
JohnWhigham 6y ago
I love Berkshire, it will be one of the stocks I hold forever, but this is a blatant case of "old men yell at Internet cloud"
bronzeage 6y ago
The real issue with Bitcoin is tether. Tether printing is practically responsible for almost all the gains in Bitcoin. Just look at Tether volume versus Bitcoin volume and tell me you trust bitcoins valuation when it's backed by make belief tethers. When you can print make belief dollars, in volumes that were never proven to exist, and pretend trading them for Bitcoin is the same as trading dollars, then of course Bitcoin can arbitrarily rise. The scale of the scam is huge and regulators completely miss it. The day regulators finally ban tether (because printing dollars should be illegal), you're going to see Bitcoin crash spectacularly. The reason Bitcoin defies all expectations is because it was never supported by real dollars.
- bob33212 6y ago
  I'm the furthest thing from a technical analysis expert of price movement, but the BTC chart looks manipulated to me. I assumed at first that it was just people trading BTC between themselves to move the market, but this theory makes more sense. BTC miners are extracting USD from their mining, while the price is controlled by other coins printing and buying BTC. New buyers of BTC are providing the cashflow into the system.
  - shlant 6y ago
    What does "manipulated" mean to you? What does a "manipulated" chart look like? (I'm not being cheeky, I am just trying to get a grasp on your perspective)
    - roofwellhams 6y ago
      That's what I always ask when someone claims manipulation
    - bob33212 6y ago
      For the past 8 weeks it has traded in a 10% band. Why have none of the events or momentum moved the price by more than 10%. You can make the case that Tesla selling some wasn't a big deal. But with everything happening over the past 2 months there should have been at least 1 swing up or down by a lot.
wombatpm 6y ago
I would like to point out that Berkshire/Buffet for years called derivatives weapons of mass destruction. People said Warren you are out of touch and don’t understand. 2008 showed him to be right.
fidesomnes 6y ago
There have been dumber arguments made against Bitcoin. But this one moves the goalpost a whole lot farther.
AegirLeet 6y ago
Of course it is. Bitcoin is just capitalism evolved, and capitalism is, of course, contrary to the interest of civilization.
- Applejinx 6y ago
  True for a particularly dark interpretation of capitalism. I think it'd be a good idea for capitalism to evolve in different ways than this. Not sure if it's a foregone conclusion, but if you end up able to say 'I told you so' then I won't argue :)
keiferski 6y ago
How does the saying go? First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. After that, they fight you. Finally, you win. When a significant portion of established powers start claiming that new threat to power is (insert hyperbolic word here), I’d say we are on step 3 of the above process. Bitcoin has a lot of issues, but cryptocurrency/blockchain in general are real, useful technologies. Don’t let the prevalence of scams and duplicitous individuals distract you from this fact.
- jsiepkes 6y ago
  > but cryptocurrency/blockchain in general are real, useful technologies. Whats the last time you bought anything (besides other coins) with cryptocurrency?
  - keiferski 6y ago
    I’m guessing you’re from a country with a reliable banking system and without rapid inflation. In places where this doesn’t exist, crypto is a miracle. Beyond that, crypto has existed for about a decade now. It’s absolutely absurd to claim that it’s “not useful” because it hasn’t been widely adopted by everyday merchants. Traditional currency has a ten-thousand year head start. Perhaps we can be patient? And that’s not even including all of the other use cases blockchain has.
    - mam3 6y ago
      How would crypto different than forex in that case ?
      - keiferski 6y ago
        I don’t have firsthand experience with this, so don’t quote me. But presumably because many countries have capital controls (with regular currencies) that aren’t or can’t be applied to crypto. Plus the simple fact that FOREX still requires a functioning overall banking infrastructure, as compared to crypto which doesn’t. The guy behind Cardano has talked a lot about crypto in Africa, so if you’re interested, I would start there. https://youtu.be/vTVrUOFXIT0 https://youtu.be/vTVrUOFXIT0
villgax 6y ago
So basically he's just in favour or secret or closed in transactions from regular institutions?
boomboomsubban 6y ago
I don't get why we care what these random people say who clearly have very little knowledge on the topic. Munger demonstrates an amount of expertise one could have gained from watching a 60 Minutes segment about bitcoin. Buffet at least dodges the issue rather than discuss something he doesn't necessarily know that much about. I can understand why many people don't like bitcoin. The argument against it is not stronger because of these soundbytes.
gandalfian 6y ago
Still think of all the Beeenie babies wastefully produced and ending up in landfill. Now we achieve the same thing but without the Beenie baby. So kind of a little bit of progress.
- Traster 6y ago
  Think Beenie babies are closer to NFTs that *coins.
- dTal 6y ago
  I found this take both funny and thought-provoking.
jamesfisher 6y ago
Also Buffett: "I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty."
- MagnumOpus 6y ago
  Your point is that Buffett is usually right and speaks inconvenient truths?
Valakas_ 6y ago
Why would you trust his opinion on BTC? Does anybody here think he spent hours studying how it works to be able to make an informed comment? Would you ask your grandfather about Netflix or smartphones? This guy didn't invest in neither Microsoft or Apple. Can he be trusted to be on top of the latest technology that if it works is not even going to affect him in any way? I don't think he knows enough about BTC to make such a claim.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
He's not wrong. I think eventually it all becomes government coin or outlawed and at that point the government gets to monitor everything you do with money and possibly more, it's a goddamn nightmare.
laszlo-kiss 6y ago
I'm doubling down on my crypto purchases... Thanks!

122 points by RickJWagner 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

tmarice 6y ago

Those grapes sure are sour.

fallat 6y ago

I...what. What kind of comment is that? It's just a meaningless remark.

sschueller 6y ago

"And I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth" You mean like cash? I'm sorry, I'm sure Warren is a nice guy but that picture reminds me of the Dukes in the movie Trading Places [1] with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Places https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Places

guerrilla 6y ago
He probably does. In Sweden, everything is going cashless in the name of convenience and cracking down on tax avoidance.
- sschueller 6y ago
  The big tax avoiders don't horde cash.
  - passtheglass 6y ago
    It's for people who take cash in hand.
  - guerrilla 6y ago
    They mean black taxis, drug dealing, unlicensed second-hand stores, etc.
- andrepd 6y ago
  Another example of something which could be good but it's not because of surveillance.
- Qluxzz 6y ago
  Swede here. I cant even remember the last time I used cash. Used to get it from my grandmother for christmas but now they send it to me digitally as well. It was always a pain to get cash since you needed to find a place to deposit them into your account, and most banks don't even handle cash today. Most of all I hate getting change, people look at you funny here if you say keep the change in a regular store.
  - frereubu 6y ago
    My mum only just stopped giving me cheques...
maxqin1 6y ago
When was the last time you tried to move a million in cash? It's not that easy...
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Yup; in $100 bills it weighs 10 kilos already.
- sschueller 6y ago
  1 bundle of 1,000 CHF (1,112.51 USD) notes is 100,000 CHF which is only 1cm thick [1]. So 10 would be 10cm which easily fits in a small bag. [1] https://www.bielertagblatt.ch/nachrichten/wirtschaft/eine-million-schweizer-franken-passen-ins-kleinste-fach https://www.bielertagblatt.ch/nachrichten/wirtschaft/eine-mi...
  - maxqin1 6y ago
    Thanks for the tip!
  - SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
    But you would not be able to collect the cash from a bank without all kinds of due diligence, or process alarms going off.
    - sschueller 6y ago
      In Switzerland it used to be quite easy as the money belongs to you and you can do with it what you want. The only issue should be depositing large sums. If the banks make it harder and harder to get your money out then of course things like bitcoin are getting more popular.
      - SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
        I can't actually speak for Switzerland, it does have a reputation for "no questions asked" banking. Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, "Know Your Customer", "Due Diligence" and other Anti-Money-Laundering measure are important. (1) I think your last point is better phrased as "If the banks make it harder and harder to get your money out in bulk, without proof that your transaction is legal; then of course things like bitcoin will be used for the illegal transactions. And as a result the regulators will sooner or later regulate those too". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_diligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_diligence
altcognito 6y ago
Ransomers don’t choose cash first, they choose Bitcoin, because they know it is safe.
- Valakas_ 6y ago
  Also traceable.
- stiltzkin 6y ago
  Bitcoin is not fungible, ransomers choose Monero.
NicoJuicy 6y ago
The logistics of moving cash is a problem on it's own.
betterunix2 6y ago
Not like cash. Collecting a cash ransom is risky since the police will watch the location where the ransom will be received. Receiving a cash ransom electronically is pointless since the account can be frozen the moment the victim is free. With Bitcoin, you can be anywhere when you receive the ransom, it cannot be frozen, and you can transact in Bitcoin far from any jurisdiction where you might be arrested.
antidaily 6y ago
A nice guy! The Dukes! You disrespectful shit.
frereubu 6y ago
The Proceeds of Crime Act in the UK makes it a duty for banks to know where large deposits come from. You walk into a bank where you haven't been depositing large sums of cash on a regular basis, with a clear rationale for having it (e.g. pre-Covid coffee shops), and you will very likely be asked to demonstrate where it came from. If you can't you're likely to have to forfeit the cash.
usrusr 6y ago
How many big computer sabotage extortion cases can you list that were handled by cash handover? That's an entire industry that simply did not exist prior to decentralised cross-boarder electronic value transfer. How long until this spreads to 20th century extortion schemes like point of sale product poisoning threats that never really picked up because transfer we such a headache?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

zpeti 6y ago

In other news, the Bloomberg Agriculture Index (price of food) is hockey-sticking: https://twitter.com/KarelMercx/status/1387108408139161600 https://twitter.com/KarelMercx/status/1387108408139161600 At the least, bitcoin is a possible way to protect against this, if you think it's a risk.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
throwaway6734 6y ago
How do you deal with deflation?
- chii 6y ago
  They don't see deflation as a problem - bitcoin is designed to deflate.
- zpeti 6y ago
  How do you deal with TVs increasing in size or dropping in price for the last 40 years? How do you deal with computers dropping in price for the last 40 years? Have these industries had issues with deflation?

reedf1 6y ago

The context of the quote: > I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth... So, I think I should say modestly that the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interest of civilization. I find it strange to criticize an asset for how it gets used in extremis. I feel like the same criticism could be levied against the dollar.

maxqin1 6y ago
Except the primary use of the dollar is good. The same can't be said about the primary use for Bitcoin (which is, at best, speculation).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- neals 6y ago
  Have you traveled? Enough places where the dollar is not the national currency but still accepted and used for purchasing drug and weapons.
  - maxqin1 6y ago
    I'm not familiar with foreign drug and weapons markets, but even so, That is still a significant minority compared to USD as a whole. BTC as a whole is used for just that and gambling.
    - adamhp 6y ago
      I'm not even pro-crypto really, but you keep making this wild claim without substantiating it. You're speculating anecdotally on the majority usage pattern of Bitcoin.
      - maxqin1 6y ago
        Come on, are you really going to argue this well-known fact without providing any examples to the contrary? Well guess what, I have a Q story and I'll sell it for your BTC!

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

maxqin1 6y ago

Working together is in the best interest of humans. Humans require trust to operate. A system designed around mistrust is inherently against our nature.

DSingularity 6y ago
Designed around mistrust? Surely you mean motivated by distrust in the financial system? You know, the same financial system that launders cartel money, rigs interest markets against the poor, and crashes housing markets to make pensioners go broke?
- maxqin1 6y ago
  The moral problems exist for a minority of USD, but a majority of BTC.
- apples_oranges 6y ago
  That's why there are control systems in place. Institutions. Their effectiveness may be debatable, but by embracing Bitcoin (imho) we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater for not a good enough reason. But what do I know. For me this whole Coin-Thing looks like Online Poker did 20 years ago. People like to gamble and they like Robin Hood type of stories..
kebman 6y ago
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Do you consider the middleman banking system a sign of trust? How about the invasion of privacy required by the state in order to collect taxes? It used to be that humans could exchange value without third parties. The third party was introduced exactly because of mistrust, and eventually this practice grew so widespread and big that it became a new industry all on its own. Cryptocurrency cuts out that third party, and makes business a one-to-one interaction again, where contracts can even be fully automated. Of course all third parties out there dislike this, but there might still be a silver lining for them. For the state, all Bitcoin transactions are visible on the blockchain, for instance. This makes Bitcoin inherently less useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth... And for the banks it makes the transfer of big amounts of value extremely safe (contrast this to what's going on in South Africa at the moment, where value transports are being violently targeted by cutthroat bandits). It also opens up a wholly new business opportunity for them if they start exchanges and on- and offramps for crypto. Already new organizations are being made that grant interest on loaning out or staking crypto, for instance.

smt88 6y ago

If you think of all investments as a bet, what are you betting on when you buy crypto? In my opinion, you're betting that crypto will be useful as an exchange of value, which means the people exchanging it are either: A) criminals or B) living in a failed state. Personally, if crypto becomes so widely used that it justifies its market caps, that means a lot of states have failed, and I don't want to live in (or bet on) that world. It's also scary that some very rich and powerful people are betting against our society continuing to be viable.

Synaesthesia 6y ago
Crypto right now is more like something people are speculating on, but it's like a collectible piece of art or something. It's cool as an idea, but that's about it. It's not going to become the currency of a failed state, there are far more power efficient and opaque ways of doing things. Basically states print money anyway, and just hand it to the banks.
- smt88 6y ago
  > It's not going to become the currency of a failed state, there are far more power efficient and opaque ways of doing things. It's already being used as a proxy for USD in some failed states (which is exactly what every stablecoin's value proposition would be). It's certainly not widespread, but it makes sense in a society where you don't actually need/want to convert to fiat to transact.
Applejinx 6y ago
Scary but plausible. I never assume that the richest and most powerful of people are also the most moral, ethical, or even viable. Seems to me it's more likely to go the other way, and that the richest and most powerful of people are that way because they're incredibly toxic and to them, even that is not nearly enough. To someone like that, the only question about bitcoin is 'can I gain something off this in some way no matter who or what it destroys in the process?' Sounds like a natural match to me, and so I'm unsurprised that some of the richest and most powerful people are all in on bitcoin. It's just that they have no intention of bitcoin, or society, ending up viable. They see a way to game it. Period.

henvic 6y ago

I just posted an article that talks about how awful Bitcoin is. One thing to have in mind is that many who are contrary to Bitcoin love the legal tender we are forced to use... which is also awful. * https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/ https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/

mratsim 6y ago

Another arrow for the Four Horsemen of the infocalypse: - child pornographers, - terrorists, - drug dealers, - money launderers / organized crimes

KingOfCoders 6y ago

I'm not a fan of Bitcoin, but often "contrary to the interest of civilization" means "contrary to the interest of me".

maxqin1 6y ago
Yes, and yes. But, if Berkshire wanted to they could pump BTC to new heights and undoubtedly make a profit.
- DSingularity 6y ago
  Doubt they are rich enough to corner the BTC market if that is what you are suggesting.
  - betterunix2 6y ago
    Berkshire Hathaway's market capitalization is more than $600B, so actually they could corner the market on it if they really wanted to (though it would probably become obvious that they were trying that long before it happened). They have no interest in Bitcoin because, from their previous comments on it, it produces nothing and they only invest in productive assets.
  - solveit 6y ago
    All they have to do is invest a billion or so in bitcoin, announce it (as they are required to), then sell it. It would be relatively trivial.
    - maxqin1 6y ago
      Exactly. But these guys are too old for the short game at this point. They are about legacy. And that should make these statements hit that much harder.
  - kamyarg 6y ago
    I think what the parent comment suggests is "Seal of approval" situation, similar thing that happened with Tesla buying bitcoin caused price surge. When a well known entity invests in crypto, trust in crypto goes up. Berkshire buying bitcoin would definitely make me buy more bitcoin.

read_if_gay_ 6y ago

> Warren Buffett: "I knew there’d be a question on bitcoin or crypto and I thought to myself, well, I watch these politicians dodge questions all the time … The truth is, I’m going to dodge that question. Because the truth is, we’ve probably got hundreds of thousands of people that are watching this that own bitcoin. And we’ve probably got two people that are short. So, we’ve got a choice of making 400,000 people mad at us and unhappy and making two people happy. And it’s just a dumb equation." > Charlie Munger: “Those who know me well are just waving the red flag at the bull. Of course, I hate the bitcoin success. And I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth. Nor do I like shoveling out a few extra billions and billions and billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air. So, I think I should say modestly that the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interest of civilization." That's all they have to say about this? None of this is particularly insightful (in fact I think it's disappointingly devoid of interesting insight). I don't see why this is on the frontpage.

maxqin1 6y ago
It's very interesting, actually. I interpreted as "Bitcoin is bad but the cult of Bitcoin is nuts so we have to be careful about what we say." What's more interesting is how the Bitcoin investor club is managing to delude themselves even with inputs from real proven financiers.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  > the cult of Bitcoin is nuts This is "very interesting" to you? It's completely obvious, is it not? Same for the other (non-)criticisms they leveled. I just don't see the newsworthiness, even if everyone's just circlejerking against BTC.
- pydry 6y ago
  As Upton Sinclair once said, it is difficult to get a man to understand something if the value of his crypto stash depends upon him not understanding it.

bitcoin01 6y ago

Remember that Coca-Cola is responsible for one of the biggest health issue of our civilisation: obesity, and Berkshire invested heavily in it.

qzw 6y ago
That’s why I only drink Pepsi.
betterunix2 6y ago
Warren Buffet has given many interviews on the topic, and on the topic of Berkshire's investments in tobacco companies. His view is basically that as long as those industries are legal he has a responsibility to his shareholders to invest in them because it is so profitable to do so. He has also summarized his views on Bitcoin many times -- he has no interest in investing in it because it is not a productive asset (the same reason he does not invest in gold).
- programmarchy 6y ago
  Ah, so he's merely being _responsible_ by investing in the destruction of public health. What a clown.
  - betterunix2 6y ago
    Responsible to his shareholders, who want a maximum return on their investment. He may be a clown, but the fact is that he is very good at giving his shareholders a return. These industries are legal. If you think they should be abolished, fine -- but don't go around getting angry that people are investing in legal businesses that produce popular, if harmful, products. Until these industries are illegal, someone is going to invest in them, and because these industries are extremely popular those who invest in them will see their wealth expand.
- bitcoin01 6y ago
  I call it hypocrisy.

JKolios 6y ago

It's just one more investment vehicle/speculative asset among thousands. What is the specific factor about Bitcoin that makes it "contrary to the interest of civilization"? Are these financiers telling us that the financialisation of literally everything on the planet and in low orbit might actually have negative externalities?

DSingularity 6y ago
Ironic right?
pydry 6y ago
* The titanic carbon footprint. * Its use in facilitating illegal transactions. * The fact that unlike cash it's used (as opposed to speculated with) for little else other than illegal transactions.** This pretty much covers it ^^ ** Yes, I'm aware. Not all prohibited transactions are bad. Donating to wikileaks is good. The fact it is used for not much else other than illegal transactions would seem to me to be the biggest risk to its value. Regulatory crackdown will be coming sooner or later and when it does, there's gonna be investor tears.
Applejinx 6y ago
These are the ones who told us the financial instruments that crashed the world in 2008, had negative externalities, before they had crashed the world. Seems plausible that these particular ones would be prepared to both spot, and tell us about, another impending disaster.

DSingularity 6y ago

Lol. So the relatively few mega-wealthy — who hoarded practically all the USD in the world — are angry that the relatively-poor have come up with a new system of value within which they are now relatively-rich? Well maybe the wealthy class should have left some for the rest of the people. Maybe the wealthy shouldn’t have fleeced every market they cornered as aggressively. Maybe they should not have constantly avoided providing healthcare, education, maternal/paternal, and quality-of-life benefits because they would cost them a few percent of annual profits. Is it a wonder that so many hope that mankind abandon the USD for BTC with such force that half the billionaires become millionaires and the other half go broke?

robjan 6y ago
Cryptocurrency has not solved the problem of a few people owning the majority of the assets. The problem has just been recreated with different people.
mathw 6y ago
Won't happen. The billionaires will just buy Bitcoin. Their investment managers probably already are.
stiltzkin 6y ago
Not BTC but central banks now are planning their own digital currencies, BTC will be the first and old legacy cryptocurrency where it will hold as value until it stop mining BTC. BTC will be replaced by other digital currency in the future eventually.

xwdv 6y ago

One of the shocking things is how much cryptocurrency has poisoned the minds of youth who see it as their easy path to riches. Young people simply don’t want to work anymore, everyone is planning to retire very soon and a job is only a temporary inconvenience while they wait for their crypto coins to moon in value and make them millionaires set for life. The truth is while many people did get very rich getting in early on the cryptocurrency wave, less and less people these days are actually growing meaningful wealth by investing in crypto. Eventually reality will catch up and people will not be able to afford keeping a bunch of coins with questionable prospects, and when they begin liquidating all at once I guarantee some people will become very poor, poorer than they could ever imagine.

SXX 6y ago
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
- dTal 6y ago
  --Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907 (in case you thought it was someone ancient or famous)
  - SXX 5y ago
    Thanks. It was actually one of quotes that I was certain is originated from greek philosophers. Yeah it seems like it's my turn to cite something incorrectly.
nahuel0x 6y ago
It's a sign of decadence, the question "what's my contribution to society?" is out of sight. Becoming rich by the crypto lottery should not be seen as an achievement with pride, but as the shame of becoming a harmful parasite.

supergirl 6y ago

regardless of this, I think there is no future for cryptocurrency as it is today, anyway. it can't remain so unregulated as it is now. either corporations will take over and legitimize it but this means it will become centralized and owned by big tech. or, it will remain the wild west that it is now, for a while, and then gov will shut it down. cryptocurrencies are the same as torrents. only popular while unregulated. but this only lasts until some big player decides to stop it

makach 6y ago

Heck. I am not a fan of bitcoin but I think that statement is flawed. The technology is young and developing. Instead of killing it/or wanting it dead, work with its potential.

bidirectional 6y ago
As someone without much knowledge of the area, is it developing? Bitcoin seems very staid and featureless compared to something like Ethereum, does it deserve to have the biggest market cap just because it was first? Also is it wise to advocate for a future where the richest people in the world will just be whoever hung out on the right forums in 2011? At least the current occupants of the Forbes list mainly built companies.

whywhywhywhy 6y ago

If the ability for normal people of every background and income to build wealth and savings wasn't being eroded at every step, maybe we wouldn't need it. Your savings are eroded by inflation, even if you own a property you're usually just renting the land it's on long term and taxed more for even having the audacity to buy property to begin with. The more you pick away at the fabric the more everything feels like a scam stacked against you. You've built a world where Bitcoin despite not being "real" is the only real store of value, there will only ever be 21 million...

rjmunro 6y ago
Why is buying companies and property (or small parts of them, i.e. stocks) not a "real store of value"?
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  If it's a leasehold, you don't really own anything, you're basically just renting with more security. Even freeholds sometimes you don't really own the land, just again renting it extremely long term. 1 bitcoin will always be worth 1 bitcoin and there will only ever be 21 million of them.
  - rjmunro 5y ago
    Yeah, don't buy leasehold. 1km² of land will always be worth 1km² of land and there will only ever be 500 million km² of them. But you can use the land.
mathw 6y ago
What value? Bitcoin goes up and down like a drunken rollercoaster and it's based on "look my computer did some maths that accomplishes nothing!" as its representation of worth. It's got no more value than conventional currencies no longer backed by the gold standard (did that ever mean anything either?) Never forget that money is largely illusory, solely a social construct, and while that's a powerful thing there is nothing here that makes Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency any more worthy than the US dollar or the Euro.

febeling 6y ago

Berkshire like big bags love civilization. It’s the best. Trust them.

JohnWhigham 6y ago

I love Berkshire, it will be one of the stocks I hold forever, but this is a blatant case of "old men yell at Internet cloud"

bronzeage 6y ago

The real issue with Bitcoin is tether. Tether printing is practically responsible for almost all the gains in Bitcoin. Just look at Tether volume versus Bitcoin volume and tell me you trust bitcoins valuation when it's backed by make belief tethers. When you can print make belief dollars, in volumes that were never proven to exist, and pretend trading them for Bitcoin is the same as trading dollars, then of course Bitcoin can arbitrarily rise. The scale of the scam is huge and regulators completely miss it. The day regulators finally ban tether (because printing dollars should be illegal), you're going to see Bitcoin crash spectacularly. The reason Bitcoin defies all expectations is because it was never supported by real dollars.

bob33212 6y ago
I'm the furthest thing from a technical analysis expert of price movement, but the BTC chart looks manipulated to me. I assumed at first that it was just people trading BTC between themselves to move the market, but this theory makes more sense. BTC miners are extracting USD from their mining, while the price is controlled by other coins printing and buying BTC. New buyers of BTC are providing the cashflow into the system.
- shlant 6y ago
  What does "manipulated" mean to you? What does a "manipulated" chart look like? (I'm not being cheeky, I am just trying to get a grasp on your perspective)
  - roofwellhams 6y ago
    That's what I always ask when someone claims manipulation
  - bob33212 6y ago
    For the past 8 weeks it has traded in a 10% band. Why have none of the events or momentum moved the price by more than 10%. You can make the case that Tesla selling some wasn't a big deal. But with everything happening over the past 2 months there should have been at least 1 swing up or down by a lot.

wombatpm 6y ago

I would like to point out that Berkshire/Buffet for years called derivatives weapons of mass destruction. People said Warren you are out of touch and don’t understand. 2008 showed him to be right.

fidesomnes 6y ago

There have been dumber arguments made against Bitcoin. But this one moves the goalpost a whole lot farther.

AegirLeet 6y ago

Of course it is. Bitcoin is just capitalism evolved, and capitalism is, of course, contrary to the interest of civilization.

Applejinx 6y ago
True for a particularly dark interpretation of capitalism. I think it'd be a good idea for capitalism to evolve in different ways than this. Not sure if it's a foregone conclusion, but if you end up able to say 'I told you so' then I won't argue :)

keiferski 6y ago

How does the saying go? First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. After that, they fight you. Finally, you win. When a significant portion of established powers start claiming that new threat to power is (insert hyperbolic word here), I’d say we are on step 3 of the above process. Bitcoin has a lot of issues, but cryptocurrency/blockchain in general are real, useful technologies. Don’t let the prevalence of scams and duplicitous individuals distract you from this fact.

jsiepkes 6y ago
> but cryptocurrency/blockchain in general are real, useful technologies. Whats the last time you bought anything (besides other coins) with cryptocurrency?
- keiferski 6y ago
  I’m guessing you’re from a country with a reliable banking system and without rapid inflation. In places where this doesn’t exist, crypto is a miracle. Beyond that, crypto has existed for about a decade now. It’s absolutely absurd to claim that it’s “not useful” because it hasn’t been widely adopted by everyday merchants. Traditional currency has a ten-thousand year head start. Perhaps we can be patient? And that’s not even including all of the other use cases blockchain has.
  - mam3 6y ago
    How would crypto different than forex in that case ?
    - keiferski 6y ago
      I don’t have firsthand experience with this, so don’t quote me. But presumably because many countries have capital controls (with regular currencies) that aren’t or can’t be applied to crypto. Plus the simple fact that FOREX still requires a functioning overall banking infrastructure, as compared to crypto which doesn’t. The guy behind Cardano has talked a lot about crypto in Africa, so if you’re interested, I would start there. https://youtu.be/vTVrUOFXIT0 https://youtu.be/vTVrUOFXIT0

villgax 6y ago

So basically he's just in favour or secret or closed in transactions from regular institutions?

boomboomsubban 6y ago

I don't get why we care what these random people say who clearly have very little knowledge on the topic. Munger demonstrates an amount of expertise one could have gained from watching a 60 Minutes segment about bitcoin. Buffet at least dodges the issue rather than discuss something he doesn't necessarily know that much about. I can understand why many people don't like bitcoin. The argument against it is not stronger because of these soundbytes.

gandalfian 6y ago

Still think of all the Beeenie babies wastefully produced and ending up in landfill. Now we achieve the same thing but without the Beenie baby. So kind of a little bit of progress.

Traster 6y ago
Think Beenie babies are closer to NFTs that *coins.
dTal 6y ago
I found this take both funny and thought-provoking.

jamesfisher 6y ago

Also Buffett: "I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty."

MagnumOpus 6y ago
Your point is that Buffett is usually right and speaks inconvenient truths?

Valakas_ 6y ago

Why would you trust his opinion on BTC? Does anybody here think he spent hours studying how it works to be able to make an informed comment? Would you ask your grandfather about Netflix or smartphones? This guy didn't invest in neither Microsoft or Apple. Can he be trusted to be on top of the latest technology that if it works is not even going to affect him in any way? I don't think he knows enough about BTC to make such a claim.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

He's not wrong. I think eventually it all becomes government coin or outlawed and at that point the government gets to monitor everything you do with money and possibly more, it's a goddamn nightmare.

laszlo-kiss 6y ago

I'm doubling down on my crypto purchases... Thanks!