Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, continued his public aversion to cryptocurrency by once again disavowing it as having no value, according to a report by CNBC.
“Cryptocurrencies basically have no value and they don’t produce anything,” he said recently. “In terms of value: zero. I don’t have any cryptocurrency and I never will.”
This is hardly the first time Buffett has spoken out against crypto. In 2018, before his company’s annual shareholders’ meeting, he said crypto was “probably rat poison squared.” He has also called it a “mirage,” “not currency” and “tulips.”
Berkshire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger said that crypto is a “turd” and that participating in trading it is “just dementia.”
Last year, Justin Sun, founder of cryptocurrency TRON and CEO of file-sharing company BitTorrent, bid $4.57 million during a charity auction to have dinner with Buffett in an attempt to change his mind.
“When Justin and four friends came, they behaved perfectly and we had a very friendly (three-and-a-half-hour) dinner, and the whole thing was a very friendly exchange of ideas,” Buffett said.
He added that he still felt the same about bitcoin.
Earlier this month, Berkshire Hathaway made an investment in grocery chain Kroger and caused the company’s shares to spike. Buffett bought 19 million shares and Kroger’s stock went up 6 percent. Berkshire is now one of the largest 10 shareholders in Kroger.
A similar thing happened in November, when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed that Berkshire Hathaway owned 1.2 million shares in furniture retailer RH, also known as Restoration Hardware. When the news was revealed, shares in RH spiked 7.5 percent in after-hours trading.
It was also revealed that Berkshire got a stake in Occidental Petroleum, and also that it got rid of some of its Wells Fargo stake, to the tune of 7.7 percent.