Charlie Munger is a name that draws the ire of many a crypto investor. He, alongside his partner Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway, have been more than just bearish on crypto; the two have chalked up digital currency as nothing more than “rat poison.” In an interview today, it seems like Munger is not budging from that stance. The billionaire is doubling down on his crypto comments but with an added level of irony considering his recent $1 billion bet on a neobank.
“I think the communist Chinese were wiser than we were,” Charlie Munger says in his interview today on Yahoo Finance, “they just banned it.” These strong words emerged from a series of answers Munger offered up around crypto and the future of it. Not one to shy away from how he’s feeling, the nonagenarian investor railed against Bitcoin (BTC-USD). Munger likened the currency to a venereal disease, and voiced his skepticism over whether the U.S. government’s incoming crypto regulations will be “wise.”
Munger closed out the interview shunning crypto investing, like he has shunned Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD), for turning the investing world into less of an institution and more of a casino.
Charlie Munger Crypto Comments an Ironic Development After Massive NU Stock Investment
Charlie Munger isn’t surprising anybody with his comments today on the crypto market; he’s been saying these things for months now. But, the comments today are extra peculiar when you recall a big investment he made earlier this week.
Just yesterday, the world saw Munger and Buffett take a dive into the world of crypto. That’s because Berkshire Hathaway invested $1 billion in Nubank (NYSE:NU) a Brazilian banking company. They did this while simultaneously dumping stakes in Visa (NYSE:V) and Mastercard (NYSE:MA) worth nearly $2.5 billion cumulatively.
Nubank deals largely in crypto banking. In June of 2021, it became one of the first banks to offer a Bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF). It was around this time that Berkshire contributed $500 million to the bank in a Series G funding round.
So while Munger doesn’t seem to have turned an ideological corner on crypto, it looks like his investment portfolio seems to have. Meanwhile, investors are beginning to respond to the comments on social media; crypto news network Blockworks is pointing out the performance of Bitcoin against the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio in the last five years in response to the comments. Another user refuted Munger’s comments that crypto is a haven for criminal activity.
On the date of publication, Brenden Rearick did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
