Warren Buffett bashes Bitcoin again, labels it a ‘gambling device’

Warren Buffett is up to his old tricks again.

“Bitcoin is a gambling device… there’s been a lot of frauds connected with it. There’s been disappearances, so there’s a lot lost on it. Bitcoin hasn’t produced anything,” the billionaire told a group of reporters ahead of Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting. “It doesn’t do anything. It just sits there. It’s like a seashell or something, and that is not an investment to me.”

He added: “I’ll tear off a button (from my jacket) here. What I’ll have here is a little token…I’ll offer it to you for $1,000, and I’ll see if I can get the price up to $2,000 by the end of the day… But the button has one use and it’s a very limited use.”

The Oracle of Omaha did, however, have positive things to say about blockchain technology. “Blockchain…is very big, but it didn’t need Bitcoin. J.P. Morgan of course came out with their own cryptocurrency,” he said. “We are probably doing it (getting involved in blockchain) indirectly, but I wouldn’t be the person to be a big leader in blockchain.”

It’s just a delusion

Buffett also trashed Bitcoin earlier this year. In an interview with CNBC, he said: “It’s ingenious, and blockchain is important, but Bitcoin has no unique value at all. It is a delusion, basically. Who knows where we’ll be next year. I’m really sorry it happens because people get their hopes up that something like that will change their lives. I’m sympathetic to people.”

That wasn’t Buffett’s first outing as a Bitcoin hater. Last year he called it “probably rat poison squared”, and has also dubbed it a “mirage” and “tulips” – a reference to the Dutch tulip bubble that bankrupted many investors in the 17th century.

“In terms of cryptocurrencies, generally, I can say with almost certainty that they will come to a bad ending,” he has declared.

Addressing his latest rant, Morgan Creek Digital of Morgan Creek Digital countered on Twitter.