Charlie Munger: Everybody Should Avoid Crypto ‘as if It Were an Open Sewer, Full of Malicious Organisms’

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Billionaire Bill Miller calls Bitcoin ‘insurance’ against financial catastrophe

May 27, 2022 Coin Telegraph

bill miller

Miller said Bitcoin “functioned without the Fed and without any interference” during times of market turmoil, concluding that “it’s an insurance policy, the way I look at it.”

Bill Miller the billionaire founder and Chief Investment Officer of investment firm Miller Value Partners, has said he considers Bitcoin (BTC) an “insurance policy against financial catastrophe.”

Appearing on an episode of the “Richer, Wiser, Happier” podcast on May 24 Miller backed the cryptocurrency as a means for those caught in conflict to still access financial products. He used the collapse of financial infrastructure in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal in August 2021 as an example.

“When the US pulled out of Afghanistan, Western Union stopped sending remittances there or taking them from Afghanistan, but if you had Bitcoin, you were fine. Your Bitcoin is there. You can send it to anybody in the world if you have a phone.”

Miller said examples of how the crypto can function as insurance don’t “have to be all or nothing” and noted how Bitcoin performed during the early stages of the pandemic and the Federal Reserve’s reaction to it.

“When the Fed stepped in and started gunning the money supply and bailing out, in essence, the mortgage rates […] Bitcoin functioned fine. There was no run on Bitcoin. The system functioned without the Fed and without any interference. Everybody got their Bitcoin, the price adjusted, and then when the Bitcoiners realized, ‘Wait, we’re going to have inflation down the road,’ Bitcoin went through the roof.”

“It’s an insurance policy, the way I look at it,” he added.

Miller also rebuked Warren Buffett’s recent criticism of Bitcoin where the billionaire investor famously remarked that “it doesn’t produce anything” and he “wouldn’t take” all the Bitcoin in the world for even $25.

"He's said that Bitcoin is a non-productive asset and therefore he can't value it. Fair enough. If the only thing that you think you can value are productive assets, then no one's making you buy it, right? So ignore it.”

He later followed up his comment, adding “the objective of investing is not to own productive assets, the objective is to make money”.

Miller is famous for managing a portfolio which for 15 consecutive years between 1991 and 2005 consistently beat the returns of the S&P 500 index. He’s also known for his advocacy of Bitcoin and put half of his net worth into the asset in January.

When asked if he still held that position Miller confirmed that about “40% to 50%” of his money was in Amazon stock and his Bitcoin holdings were “about the same as Amazon”, adding that 80% of his net worth is split between the two assets.

Miller also discussed the Luna-based tattoo on the arm of Mike Novogratz, the founder of crypto asset management firm Galaxy Digital after the collapse of the Terra ecosystem:

“Somebody had sent me a picture of Mike Novogratz where he got a Luna tattoo on his arm months ago of the wolf howling at the moon, and it’s big. It’s like, whoops, maybe you should have got a Bitcoin on your arm, it’d be a little more enduring than that one.”

Novogratz has said that the tattoo will be a “constant reminder that venture investing requires humility” as Galaxy Digital posted a $300 million loss on its Luna investments.

“I felt bad for him when I saw some story of him going from something like $10 billion to $2 billion,” Miller said, “I’m like, yeah, that’s really tragic”.

Bill Gates: Crypto Has No Valuable Output — It’s Not Adding to Society Like Other Investments

May 22, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Warren Buffett Calls Bitcoin Advocates ‘Out of Their Mind,’ Says USD Only Real Form of Money

May 2, 2022 The Daily Hodl

Buffett back bashing Bitcoin, claims it ‘doesn’t produce anything’

May 2, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin

“If you told me you own all of the Bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25 I wouldn’t take it because what would I do with it?” Warren Buffett said.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has once again slammed Bitcoin, asserting he “wouldn’t take” all of the BTC in the world for just $25.

The 91-year-old, with a net worth of around $124 billion, is an avid crypto skeptic that once called Bitcoin "rat poison squared." His arguments often stem around digital assets offering no tangible value, and the community has been quick to highlight on this occasion that there is a myriad of use cases and utility in crypto that Buffett likely hasn’t researched.

Speaking at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder meeting on April 30, Buffett commented on crypto in relation to the growing mainstream adoption of the sector. He noted that while he has no idea if the value of BTC will increase moving forward, he is sure that “it doesn’t produce anything.”

Buffett argued that he would happily write “a check this afternoon” worth $25 billion for 1% of all the farmland or “apartment houses” in the U.S. as they both produce real-world utility, but wouldn’t even spend $25 for 100% of the supply of Bitcoin:

“Now if you told me you own all of the Bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25 I wouldn’t take it because what would I do with it? I’d have to sell it back to you one way or another. It isn’t going to do anything. The apartments are going to produce rent and the farms are going to produce food.”

“Assets, to have value, have to deliver something to somebody. And there’s only one currency that’s accepted,” he added.

Well-known crypto proponents were mocking Buffett’s comments on Twitter over the weekend.

warren buffett thinking crypto is worth zero is funny bc he has literally no idea that ethereum just had a customer pay $150M to use the software for 2 hours.
— Ξ (@scott_lew_is) May 1, 2022

Co-founder of top crypto venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Marc Andreessen noted that “it’s so wild he says this stuff while nakedly shilling diabetes,” in reference to an ensemble of See’s Candies boxes and soda cans on Buffett’s desk during the speech.

In response, Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk said “haha he says ‘Bitcoin’ so many times.” While MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor chimed in that “everyone can’t stop talking about Bitcoin.”

Haha he says “Bitcoin” so many times
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 1, 2022

Jamie Dimon pays crypto a small compliment

One crypto skeptic that is at least softening their stance a little, is JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon.

The banker once described Bitcoin as “fraud” and has continuously reiterated that he has no interest in backing the sector on a personal level, despite JP Morgan warming up to digital assets significantly over the past couple of years.

Speaking with Omaha-based news outlet KMTV 3 on Friday, Dimon noted that while he still doesn’t particularly like crypto and urges caution when investing in it, he will “defend your right to do it.”

He also went on to highlight that crypto does serve important use cases at times, especially in regards to cross-border payments:

“Not all of it is bad. If you said to me ‘I want to send $200 to a friend in a foreign country,’ that could take you two weeks and cost you $40. You could do it through a digital currency and it’ll take you seconds.”