Billionaire businessman Charlie Munger insists that cryptocurrencies are depraved and that one of the biggest mistakes of the century was governments providing them with an ideal environment to thrive.
Speaking on Wednesday on Yahoo Finance, Munger who is also the vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett, noted that he and Buffett were very well aware of what was happening and that they still believed that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were a disaster in waiting.
“A lot of people think, well warren and Charlie don’t understand it,” he said, “I think we do understand it and we know it isn’t good for our republic.”
According to him, cryptocurrencies are bad in every aspect as they do not only pose security threats but they are also a recipe for an economic meltdown. “If you stop to think about it, it’s an ideal currency if you want to commit extortion or kidnapping or have a protection record or something,” he added, wondering why a civilized government would want an untraceable currency “run by a bunch of people who want to get rich quick for doing very little for civilization” to come into the payment system.
Munger, who believes that it’s rather too late to reverse the situation given the deep involvement of government officials went on to applaud the Chinese government for taking the drastic step of banning crypto. “You let a bad genie out of a bottle, god knows what happens,” he continued, “I think the communist Chinese were wiser”
Apart from lambasting crypto on previous occasions, Munger and Buffett have also expressed their distaste for crypto exchanges, particularly Robinhood in May 2021 after referring to it as a “casino” of sorts. In the wake of those allegations, Robinhood had hit back, calling such proclamations “disappointing and elitist”. The duo has also been criticized for acting like they are the oracles of investing.
Despite the lash back, Munger still believes crypto firms, especially exchanges should not be allowed to operate as they mix up the legitimate activity of raising capital for enterprises that need it ‘with a gambling casino.’
“It isn’t good to have a lot of people trying to get easy money for sure just from gambling and the people that are preying on them, the salesmen and market makers, they are not the most admirable people either, so no, I don’t like it at all,” he continued.
As to what he could do given the chance to lead a country, “If I were the benign dictator of the world, I would make it unfeasible to make short-term gains in securities,” Munger said.
