Warren Buffett’s right-hand man and the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger, says he is concerned when the price of bitcoin rises. The 99-year-old compared the cryptocurrency to a “stink ball” among traditional currencies. “When you start creating an artificial currency, you’re throwing your stink ball into a recipe that’s been around for a long time, that’s worked very well for a lot of people,” the executive said.
Charlie Munger Sees Bitcoin as a Stink Ball
Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger took a swipe at bitcoin again in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday. One of the questions posed to the 99-year-old was whether he is worried about the recent surge in the price of bitcoin.
“Of course it concerns me,” he replied. “I have a lot of very simple fundamental ideas that I think every educated person ought to have. Those ideas include what Adam Smith taught everybody … In order to get the Smithian results, you need a currency to facilitate exchanges. And to make the currency respected widely, the trick we’ve used is the sovereign issues it.”
Munger added: “The only way to get from hunter-gathering to civilization that we know of that’s ever worked is to have a strong currency. It can be seashells, it can be corn kernels, it can be a lot of things. It can be gold coins, it can be promises in banking systems like we have in the United States and England and so on.” The Berkshire executive stressed:
When you start creating an artificial currency…you’re throwing your stink ball into a recipe that’s been around for a long time, that’s worked very well for a lot of people.
Munger has long been a vocal critic of cryptocurrencies, particularly bitcoin. Last month, the Berkshire executive warned that most crypto investments will go to zero, noting that bitcoin was the “stupidest investment” he ever saw.
He previously called BTC “rat poison” and likened its trading to “trading turds.” In February, he said: “It’s just ridiculous that anybody would buy this stuff … It’s just unspeakable, it’s an absolute horror, and I’m ashamed of my country that so many people believe in this kind of crap, and the government allows it to exist.”
In July last year, he said he won’t touch crypto, advising everybody to “avoid it as if it were an open sewer full of malicious organisms.” He also likened crypto to “a venereal disease” and advocated for governments to ban them. Moreover, he wished crypto had “never been invented,” stating: “The whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interest of civilization.”
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