© Paul Morigi/Getty Images Warren Buffett speaks onstage during Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on October 13, 2015 in Washington, DC. Paul Morigi/Getty Images
- Warren Buffett took aim at bitcoin, calling the crypto intrinsically worthless.
- Investing in crypto is like “wanting to play a roulette wheel” the Berkshire Hathaway chair told CNBC.
- Crypto markets have been rallying, with bitcoin surging 65% in the past three months.
Warren Buffett called bitcoin a “gambling token” with zero value on Wednesday as the cryptocurrency traded near 10-month highs.
The Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO ratcheted up his fiery crypto commentary, describing investing in digital assets as akin to spending time at a casino.
“It doesn’t have any value, but that doesn’t stop people from wanting to play a roulette wheel,” the 92 year old told CNBC in an interview.
Crypto markets have experienced a broad upswing recently. Bitcoin and ethereum are up 61% and 35%, according to Messari, but still roughly 56% and 36% below their all-time highs hit in November of 2021.
Price action in crypto can be volatile, and markets have been especially sensitive to speculation around the US central bank’s monetary policy tightening, as risk assets like crypto have sold off heavily in face of higher interest rates.
“[You could] spend the rest of your life spinning around the roulette wheel because they feature the winners and people get excited about it,” Buffett said. “[But] that’s why the slot machines make a lot of noise without paying out.”
People have an instinct to gamble, Buffett says, which causes investors to flock to crypto. He said allocating to the asset class simply “eats up your money.”
“The urge to participate in something [that] looks like easy money is a human instinct,” he added. “I’ve always wanted to get rich slow and I have a lot of fun along the way.”