QuestionerWe've got a lot of questions on this topic. I'll ask this one that came from Raj. He says, have you changed your views on Bitcoin and or cryptocurrency in any respect? I'm conflicted about this because his own views have slightly evolved during the past two years from Bitcoin as a fraud and waste to Bitcoin is in a speculative bubble but might have some uses.
WarrenWell, I shouldn't answer any questions on the subject, but I will. You know, there's all kinds of people watching this that are long Bitcoin and there's nobody that's short and nobody wants their windpipe step down. I don't blame them. I don't like people to step on my windpipe. But I would say this, that if all the people in this room owned all of the farmland in the United States, and you offered me a 1% interest in it, and you said for a 1% interest in all the farmland in the United States, pay me, pay our group. Well, let's see. Pay us this bargain price, $25 billion. I'll write you check this afternoon. $25 billion. Now I own 1% of the farmland. If you tell me you own 1% of the apartment houses in the United States, and you offer me a 1% interest, so I'll have a 1% in all the apartment houses in the country, and you want whatever it may be for another $25 billion or something. Right, you check. It's very simple. Now, if you told me you owned all of the Bitcoin in the world, and you offered it to me for $25,000. I wouldn't take it because what would I do with it? I have to sell it back to you one way or another. I mean, maybe I have the same people, but it isn't going to do anything. The apartments are going to produce rental and the farms are going to produce food. And if I've got all the Bitcoin, you know, I'm back where whatever his name was, who may or may not have existed was, you know, 15 years ago. If I've got it all, he could create a mystery about it. But everybody knows what I'm like. I mean, so if I'm trying to get rid of it, you know, people will say, well, you know, why should I buy some Bitcoin from you? I mean, why don't you call a Buffer coin, you know, make your owner or something? But I'm not going to give you anything for it. And you'd be right, incidentally. But that explains the difference between productive assets and something that depends on the next guy paying you more than the last guy got. Now, net, if you look at it, A lot of commissions have been paid, and there's, I mean, there's all kinds of frictional costs that are very real that somebody has paid.
[3:25]
WarrenToo much of people who facilitate this game. But whatever one group of the public is taken out, or one group of owners, has come in from other people. I mean, other people have entered the room and they move money around, but no money has, there's no more money in the room. It just changed hands with a lot of money. of maybe fraud and costs involved and, you know, a whole bunch of these. But basically, assets, to be, to have value, they have to deliver something to somebody, and there's only one currency that's acceptable in the United States. I mean, you can come up with all kinds of things. We can put out Berkshire coins or, you know, we can put up Berkshire money or anything like that. And anybody that thinks the United States is going to change to where they let Berkshire money replace theirs, you know, is out of their mind. I mean, and so anyway, with those few deficiencies, you know, whether it goes up or down in the next year, five years, 10 years, I don't know. But the one thing I'm pretty sure of is that it doesn't multiply. doesn't produce anything. It's got a magic to it. And people have attached magics to lots of things. I mean, the gold on Wall Street, you know, create magic, you know. In my life, I try and avoid things that are stupid and evil and make me look bad in comparison with somebody else. And Bitcoin does all three. And the first place, it's stupid. because it's very likely to go to zero. The same place is evil because it undermines the Federal Reserve system and the national currency system, which we desperately need to maintain its integrity and government control and so on. And third, it makes us look foolish compared to the communist leader in China. He was smart enough to ban Bitcoin in China. And with all of our presumed advantages of civilization, we are a lot dumber than the communist leader in China.