The price of Bitcoin slipped this week after Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Charlie Munger all spoke poorly of the digital asset. But the question remains, do these billionaire heavyweights know what they’re talking about?
Gates insisted that Bitcoin was a ‘greater fool’ investment, as well as “one of the crazier, speculative things” he had ever seen, and then doubling down by saying he would “short it if there was an easy way to do it.”
The funny thing is that at the end of last year, shorting Bitcoin through derivatives was made possible. It’s surprising that someone like Gates doesn’t currently know what he can or cannot do in the Bitcoin investment landscape.
For his part, Buffett bashed Bitcoin by stating that “when you’re buying nonproductive assets, all you’re counting on is the next person is going to pay you more because they’re even more excited about another next person coming along.”
The Oracle of Omaha said the same thing about commodities several years ago. It’s true that it remains difficult to accurately predict commodity prices over time due to the challenges of maintaining consistent profit margins in a fluctuating market, but by no means is an investor not able to turn a profit with a properly timed investment, which is the case with Bitcoin or any other investment.
Munger jumped in by saying Bitcoin was “worthless artificial gold,” and that it reminded him of “Oscar Wilde’s definition of fox hunting: the pursuit of uneatable by the unspeakable.”
All the Bitcoin bashing didn’t go unnoticed, causing the digital asset’s value to slip all the way down to $9,300. It’s true that these three billionaires are the best of the best and deserve to have their opinions heard, but this story has been played out over and over again.
Why is it that older successful men who are already dominating their respective industries continue to trash-talk Bitcoin? To be honest, I would not expect anything less. Bitcoin is a threat to the way we currently do things. It’s disrupting both the technology and financial industries, and those who have made a fortune in these sectors have nothing to gain from the digital currency and everything to lose.
Does a highly profitable centralized software company like Microsoft want a decentralized currency to come along? Of course not! The super-rich have nothing to gain from Bitcoin succeeding. There’s only so much wealth that can exist in the world, and if Bitcoin continues to advance on fiat currencies like the dollar, then those holding most of their wealth in dollars will possess less overall value.
I would put people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Charlie Munger at the top of this list. And let’s not forget about other Bitcoin haters like JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon or BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who called Bitcoin a fraud. The fact is that these individuals have achieved success at the highest level, and they continue to badmouth Bitcoin because it offers no benefit to their current ventures and only threatens their wealth and business enterprises.
