Benjamin Franklin famously said that the only things that are certain in life are death and taxes. Then again, Benjamin Franklin did not live in the era of online trading and cryptocurrency. If he had, he might have been tempted to add a third item to his list — namely, the near-certainty of Warren Buffett being incredibly unimpressed by the next big thing in finance.
Last year, Buffett made his disdain for Robinhood and other online stock trading apps apparent. This year, it’s Bitcoin’s turn.
During this year’s annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, which has often provided the noted investor with a platform to weigh in on the financial issues of the day, Buffett decided to compare the benefits of Bitcoin versus farmland.
As Gizmodo reports, he told the assembled audience that he would happily take one percent of the farmland or apartment rentals in the United States for $25 billion. As for Bitcoin, he’s far less interested in one percent of it — or, for that matter, all of it.
“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?” Buffett said. “I’d have to sell it back to you one way or another.”
By way of explanation, Buffett made the case that you can’t do much with Bitcoin on its own. “Whether it goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don’t know,” he said. “But the one thing I’m pretty sure of is that it doesn’t multiply, it doesn’t produce anything.”
Will history prove Buffett right or wrong? That’s a question to consider in the years to come — but it’s safe to say that Buffett’s instincts on investing have served him (and others) very well to date.
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