Charlie Munger, a leading American investor and the Vice Chairman of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, called Bitcoin ‘disgusting’ in a recent statement.
Speaking to the Annual Shareholders meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, Munger said that someone has created Bitcoin out of thin air. Additionally, he criticized BTC’s extreme Volatility and the lack of regulation.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency gained nearly 5% in the last 24 hours. As of writing, Bitcoin is trading above $58,000 with a market cap of more than $1.1 trillion.
“I hate the Bitcoin success. I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth, nor do I like just shuffling out of your extra billions of billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air,” Munger said during Berkshire Hathaway’s Q&A session.
Commenting about the status of Bitcoin as a substitute for Gold, Munger said that he never bought Gold or BTC. “I think I should say modestly that the whole development is disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization,” he added.
The comments from the Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway are similar to Warren Buffett’s views about Bitcoin and other digital currencies. In 2018, Buffett called BTC 'worthless'.
Bitcoin Critics
Several economists and billionaires have criticized Bitcoin for its volatility and lack of use as a currency in the past. During an interview with Bloomberg in December 2020, David Rosenberg, the President and Chief Economist of the Toronto-based Rosenberg Research, criticized Bitcoin and called BTC a massive bubble. In March 2021, Jon Danielsson, Director of the Systemic Risk Centre at the London School of Economics, said that cryptocurrency assets including Bitcoin and Ethereum are not very useful.
Despite the criticism, the adoption of the world’s digital currency has increased significantly during the last few years. Leading global companies including Tesla and Square started adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets. Financial firms like PayPal and Visa have already started accepting BTC and other Cryptocurrencies .
