Charlie Munger really doesn’t like crypto. In fact, he has been talking about it publicly for quite some time. He says he wishes he had never been invented. He said that Bitcoin is “stupid and evil,” and useful for “kidnappers and extortionists.” He compared crypto to “rat poison,” and “venereal disease.” And he says it’s “almost crazy to buy this thing or sell it.”
So it should come as no surprise that Munger, who is worth $2.3 billion and is famously the right-hand man of Oracle of Omaha Warren Buffett, has decided to maintain his status as a top crypto skeptic. And he had some additional thoughts to share.
“I’m not proud of my country for allowing this nonsense – yes, I call it crypto s***. It’s useless, it’s not good, it’s crazy, it won’t do any harm, it’s antisocial it allows it,” said Munger in a live interview with CNBC on the show for Daily Journal. He went on to say that he was embarrassed that so many people “believed this nonsense and the government allowed it to exist.”
In the past, Munger has said that the US should take a page from China when it comes to regulation—the country is banning cryptocurrency by 2021.
“What should the US do after the ban on cryptocurrencies is implemented?” which he wrote in the new The Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Well, one more action might make sense: Thank the Chinese communist leaders for a wonderful example of uncommon common sense.”
When asked about the new op-ed, Munger told CNBC: “I think people who oppose my position are idiots.”
“I don’t think there is any rational argument against my position,” he said.
Aside from Munger’s long-standing distaste for crypto, the industry itself has had a terrible year. Back-to-back collapses, including the TerraUSD stablecoin, and the FTX exchange, have left reeling, and at one point the sector was down by $2 trillion in value. One of the most prominent crypto founders in the US, Sam Bankman-Fried FTX, is currently awaiting trial on fraud charges.
Regulators have also become more aggressive about cracking down on crypto companies after the incident. This week, the New York Department of Financial Services stopped the crypto company Paxos from issuing coins for Binance. And in a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said that the fallout from the crypto failure is still there.
“The nightmare is not over,” he said. “The recent crypto debacle has made it clear that we need a comprehensive framework for regulating crypto products to protect consumers and our financial system.”
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