Warren Buffet saids: “Stay Away From Bitcoin”

[Daniel91]

Didn't Warren Buffet said the same thing about Facebook too? Facebook is still here and worth billions. Buffet is not a tech guy and he is not very good at valuating technological innovations.

Exactly!
I really think that Warren Buffet is financial genius but this doesn't mean that he is expert in everything.
Maybe he don't like revolutionary, free concept behind bitcoin, decentralization, no banks involved etc.

[Lauda]

I don't really give a damn what he says. His opinion is worth to me the same as the opinion of any other stranger.

[Meuh6879]

media people ... say the inverse of real thing :

- 2013 : don't buy gold = GOLD buyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
- 2015 : don't buy bitcoin = BITCOIN buyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[Argwai96]

I really don't think he understands the concept. The main positives are the low cost transaction fees and borderless transactions this is what it gives inherent value with security and privacy. This is like saying email has no value because we have the postal service.

I think you are right, he likely does not understand the concept of bitcoin. He has never really understood technology companies, nor has he invested in them.

From what I can tell him tends to only invest in industries that are very well established and are unlikely to go away anytime soon (or ever). Neither bitcoin nor technology is going to meet this criteria

[wesk1212]

Well warren buffet is right so far and all of you are wrong :7

[thejaytiesto]

Warren Buffet himself has said to not obssess over graphs and let time pass.
He took 10 years to get one of his best investments back and when he invested it initially went down.
Most people are sometimes wrong and statistically he is wrong with this. He is simply TOO OLD to get it.

[slaveforanunnak1]

fuck that reptile.

[MarketNeutral]

Ordinarily when a well-known investor says to buy or sell something, he's simply talking his book to increase his profits. But in this case? Who knows. I haven't a clue what he really thinks of Bitcoin, and I'm skeptical he even understands it.

Ol' Warren has carefully developed his "kindly grandpa" persona as a means to compensate for his current lack of investment acumen. He was one of the twentieth century's greatest investors, but his twenty-first century record is spotty at best. He used to be the king of arbitrage and buyouts; but now, he's burning through his cash reserves and credit lines by investing haphazardly everywhere he can, hoping something sticks.

[MarketNeutral]

I don't really give a damn what he says. His opinion is worth to me the same as the opinion of any other stranger.

Many professional investors share your opinion.

[botany]

Buffet doesn't understand technology.
It is right for him to stay away. 

[gjgjg]

Buffet is an investing genius.  However, he also has said he wont invest in things he doesn't understand and that includes technology.  This is a guy who was reluctant to invest in MICROSOFT because he didn't understand it.
...

I saw him taking about that, in a thing with bill Gates as co  host (whom he's been friends with for ages i think): how he is a technophobe and didn't invest in MS because it's not something he can grasp.
If Gates can't convince him of the potential of Microsoft how is he ever supposed to get bitcoin!?

[gargantuar]

After years of lurking I am responding to an actor_tom_truong post.  Does that make me a follower?  We never know what our futures hold!  

Warren buffet is a savvy investor and ate more of the apple than you would think this core that is left could hold.  The fat old turd Buffett is on the downslope of his magnificent parabola and soon will not recognize the world he was born into (and the world he so successfully exploited in past years).  

I have friends that follow him around and a business partner that had Sunday brunch with him a few months ago.  I will check (didn't bother to ask before) and see how impressive the fat serpent really was and report back.

P.S.  Look at the places this codger puts his political donations...

[keithers]

I believe he has historically advised people to stay away from tech stocks as well, many of which have performed fantastic.

[Gianluca95]

I think that Warren Buffett is too much old to try to understand this new type of tecnology. Maybe he consider that an other type of investment like house is much good than bitcoin, but my opinion is that in future he will repent about this thing.

[Possum577]

To the OP, do YOU have any thoughts? Thanks for the link but what's the point of this thread? What's your position?

[rz20]

He doesn't like to buy assets he doesn't know abost. Also, He doesn't invest in anything related to technology.

[Possum577]

Warren Buffet is an oldschool master. (master of the masters actually)

“Stay away from it. It’s a mirage, basically. … It’s a method of transmitting money. It’s a very effective way of transmitting money, and you can do it anonymously and all that. A check is a way of transmitting money, too. Are checks worth a whole lot of money just because they can transmit money? Are money orders? You can transmit money by money orders. People do it. I hope Bitcoin becomes a better way of doing it, but you can replicate it a bunch of different ways, and it will be. The idea that it has some huge intrinsic value is just a joke in my view.”

This answer is so god damn stupid. The ways he mentioned, non of them provides the anonymosity and more importantly they are not free. He is right about one thing though, btc is only good for transferring money for now. Volatility is killing this things true potential.

His answer isn't "so god damn stupid" it's actually pretty logical, sensible, and smart. The only element he doesn't explain way is the finite amount of Bitcoins that will exist. If there were only checks or money orders or debit cards available in the world, let's say 21 million, would there be a premium to use them as a form of payment?

[Possum577]

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/warren-buffet-stay-away-from-bitcoin/

The Crypto Coin News article (obviously) takes a defensive stance explaining why and how Buffet's opinion on Bitcoin can be dismissed away. The problem, however is that the Journalist, Evander Smart, doesn't do a very good job proving Buffet wrong.

Smart scoffs at Buffet's analogy that Bitcoin is like a check or money order by stating "that's like comparing an email to a telegram." I think he's implying that comparing an email to a telegram is a ridiculous idea. The problem is that it isn't, email IS like a telegram! Obviously the technology behind the telegram is the precursor to the technology behind an email. An email does everything a telegram does, although faster, more convenient, more immediate, a cheaper, which is very similar to the benefits Bitcoin provides beyond existing payment methods.

Smart claims that quantitative easing economic practices and zero percent interest rates are mirages, but they aren't. They exist, they were created by humans just as setting a price on goods and services was set by humans. Just like VIRTUAL currency was created by humans. QE and zero percent interest rates exist to stimulate the economy...they may work, they may not, but either way they aren't a mirage. (The fact that they aren't a mirage is what makes Bitcoin so attractive as alternative currency.) And to be completely honest, if we all lose electricity none of this becomes relevant...without electricity and the network that supports the general ledger the idea of Bitcoin disappears like a haze mirage on the desert in the distance.

I will agree with Smart on one point, Buffet doesn't understand the technology used to create Bitcoin. I agree with that (although I have no more knowledge about it than Smart does...which is zero because Smart has never talked to Buffet to confirm his lack of knowledge.) Buffet's lack of understanding on how Bitcoins are created isn't very relevant to making an investment decision. No one buys, uses, or holds Bitcoin because of the technology used to create it. They buy, use, or hold Bitcoin because of the benefits it provides. Those benefits are easy to quantify and therefore easy to build a "buy or sell or stay away" opinion on.

The most promising thing is that Buffet is making a call on it...just like at one point he made a call on IBM saying it wasn't a worthy investment. It legitimizes Bitcoin, which is what everyone here is hoping for.

The one thing that most of us can agree on is that no one knows which way the price is going to go and no one knows (with certainty) what the finite amount of Bitcoins and the upcoming mining halving rates will have on supply and demand. But you can be certain that supply and demand is not a mirage and will drive the price...into the ground or to the moon.

[bf4btc]

Warren Buffet is an oldschool master. (master of the masters actually)

“Stay away from it. It’s a mirage, basically. … It’s a method of transmitting money. It’s a very effective way of transmitting money, and you can do it anonymously and all that. A check is a way of transmitting money, too. Are checks worth a whole lot of money just because they can transmit money? Are money orders? You can transmit money by money orders. People do it. I hope Bitcoin becomes a better way of doing it, but you can replicate it a bunch of different ways, and it will be. The idea that it has some huge intrinsic value is just a joke in my view.”

This answer is so god damn stupid. The ways he mentioned, non of them provides the anonymosity and more importantly they are not free. He is right about one thing though, btc is only good for transferring money for now. Volatility is killing this things true potential.

His answer isn't "so god damn stupid" it's actually pretty logical, sensible, and smart. The only element he doesn't explain way is the finite amount of Bitcoins that will exist. If there were only checks or money orders or debit cards available in the world, let's say 21 million, would there be a premium to use them as a form of payment?

The reason Buffet advises potential investors to stay away from bitcoin is because he does not understand bitcoin. It has nothing to do with the underlying potential value of bitcoin, nor the potential success of bitcoin in the future

[haploid23]

No one can be right 100% of the time on everything. He had a 50/50 of getting it right. Bitcoin is not even a decade old yet, and he probably made the money call too soon.

It's perfectly fine to say BTC is a bad investment if backed up with sound reasoning, but his reasonings are terrible. It's clear that he doesn't fully understand the technology based on his reasoning.