Equities proponent and Warren Buffett’s business partner, Charlie Munger took a dig at the crypto industry yet again. This time around he compared crypto to an “open sewer full of malicious organisms.”
In a recent interview with the Australian Financial Review, Munger alerted the investors against putting their funds into crypto, asserting that the “crypto craze” is a “mass folly”. He said, “I think anybody that sells this stuff is either delusional or evil. I won’t touch the crypto”. Munger added, “I’m not interested in undermining the national currencies of the world”.
Following this, the 98-year-old billionaire recommended that “total avoidance is the correct policy” when dealing with crypto, further suggesting that investors should “never touch it, never buy it” and just “let it pass by.”
While pitching that stock or equities investments into real cash-generating companies as a wise alternative, Munger mocked the digital assets industry again, saying “crypto is an investment in nothing, and the guy who’s trying to sell you an investment in nothing says, ‘I have a special kind of nothing that’s difficult to make more of”.
Following his anti-crypto remarks, he added “I don’t want to buy a piece of nothing, even if somebody tells me they can’t make more of it. I regard it as almost insane to buy this stuff or to trade in it. I just avoid it as if it were an open sewer, full of malicious organisms. I just totally avoid and recommended everybody else follow my example.”
Munger Criticises Crypto Investments But High Net-Worth Individuals May Disagree
On one hand, Munger may compare crypto to “open sewers” or “venereal diseases”, which syncs with Buffett’s “rat poison” comments on the industry. On the other hand, earlier this year, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway dumped its Visa and Mastercard holdings, further reallocating $1 billion worth of funds to the pro-Bitcoin Nubank.
Additionally, despite deep-pocketed players’ criticism of crypto, a recent report published by Capgemini revealed that 71% of high net-worth individuals (HNIs) globally have invested in digital assets and 91% of HNIs younger than 40 have made investments into digital assets, emphasizing that “cryptocurrencies are their favorite digital asset investment”.