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Charlie Munger – Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway – has reignited his ire for cryptocurrencies and the industry surrounding them. In his latest criticism, he deemed the entire space an “open sewer” overrun by bad actors selling valueless digital coins.
Never Touch Crypto, says Munger
In an interview published in the Australian Financial Review on Tuesday, Munger referred to the “crypto craze” within recent years as a form of “mass folly.” He claimed that cryptocurrencies are “investments in nothing” that one would need to be “almost insane” to consider.
Such criticisms are hardly new. Financial and political critics alike have endlessly dismissed cryptocurrencies as lacking any purpose, besides environmental harm and money laundering. However, Munger has long attacked cryptocurrency as not only worthless, but fundamentally rotten.
“I just avoid it as if it were an open sewer, full of malicious organisms,” he said in the interview. “I just totally avoid and recommended everybody else follow my example.”
Continuing, Munger said he thinks anybody selling cryptocurrencies is either delusional or evil. “I’m not interested in undermining the national currencies of the world,” he said.
His stance matches that which he held in February, when he called crypto a “venereal disease” that he was happy to have avoided. “I just regard it as beneath contempt,” he said, adding his admiration of China’s outright ban on the sector.
The billionaire has also called crypto a primarily criminal tool that’s “contrary to the interests of civilization.” Chainalysis data shows that crypto transactions are becoming less dominated by criminals over time, but the absolute value laundered through the blockchain remains high.
Buffet, Crypto, and National Currencies
Warren Buffet – the longtime superior to Munger at Berkshire Hathaway – has virtually identical opinions on crypto as his right-hand man. The investor has famously labeled Bitcoin as “rat poison” – a statement that 30% of big Wall Street investors agreed with last year.
In May, Buffett claimed that he wouldn’t buy all of the Bitcoin in existence for $25 because the asset doesn’t “produce anything.”
During the same talk, he asserted that dollars are ultimately what’s accepted as money and that the U.S. government would never let something like Bitcoin replace it.
So far, two relatively poor nations have elected to make Bitcoin legal tender within their borders. However, neither of these countries – El Salvador nor the Central African Republic – had their own national currencies before Bitcoin, instead using dollars and the CFA franc respectively.