Munger wishes cryptocurrencies had never been developed
Charlie Munger, a billionaire investor, is still not a big supporter of Bitcoin.
‘I wish they’d never been invented,’ Munger said at the Sohn conference in Sydney on Friday, according to the Australian Financial Review.
Asked if he had any admiration for China, Munger replied, “I think they made the right decision by simply banning them.”
The cryptocurrency market temporarily surpassed a market value of $3 trillion in November, and leading coins like bitcoin hit new highs this year, spurring a boom in interest in digital assets.
For the 97-year-old Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman, this position is nothing new. According to Munger, the Covid-19 pandemic made him loathe bitcoin even more in May at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting.
In response to the bitcoin success, he declared, “Of course I hate it.” Not only does it make kidnappers and extortionists so much easier to get their hands on your extra billions of billions of dollars, but I don’t enjoy just handing over your extra money to someone who just manufactured a new financial product out of thin air.
According to Munger, “I think I should say modestly that the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization.”
Munger, of course, would be opposed by bitcoin advocates. Some people feel that bitcoin can be utilised as a form of inflation protection because of its role as a store of value. According to these proponents, bitcoin is a safe and secure peer-to-peer currency.
Munger, on the other hand, has often slammed bitcoin for its volatility.
“It’s really kind of an artificial substitute for gold. And since I never buy any gold, I never buy any bitcoin,” Munger said at the annual shareholders meeting for the Daily Journal in February. “Bitcoin reminds me of what Oscar Wilde said about fox hunting. He said it was the pursuit of the uneatable by the unspeakable.”
According to Coin Metrics, Bitcoin is currently trading at $56,085, with a market value of more than $1 trillion.
