I'm sure he meant this tongue in cheek, but dollars are ultimately backed and propped up by the US government. Sure, no currency is worth anything if it's liter

I'm sure he meant this tongue in cheek, but dollars are ultimately backed and propped up by the US government. Sure, no currency is worth anything if it's literally controlled entirely by one person. There are plenty of cryptocurrencies that are pretty much identical to bitcoin but that didn't take off. The only thing that bitcoin has going for it is a shared belief that it's worth something. On the other hand, the US Dollar is a worth something because of a shared belief that the US government is going to do whatever it takes to make sure it's worth something. Even if I thought that the US government is gonna get overthrown next year, I still need to pay this year's taxes in US dollars, so it derives at least some of its value from there. To be fair to Buffett, he doesn't care about owning dollars either. Or even gold, which has a damn good track record of being valuable. His assets are pretty much entirely in some form of equity. He likes owning shares of companies that sell some product. Sure, he needs dollars to transact, but it's not like he's holding tons of dollars either.