““The country did not need a currency that’s good for kidnappers.””
Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A,
“It pains me that in my own country I see people that were once regarded as very reputable people helping this thing exist, promoting [its] use and so forth,” he said in a CNBC interview that aired on Tuesday. “This is a very bad thing.”
Munger spoke to CNBC after the financial collapse of the crypto firm FTX and after its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, stepped down as CEO of the company.
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So why do good people make poor investment decisions? Munger believes they’re influenced by a combination of factors.
“It’s partly fraud and partly delusion,” Munger said. “That’s a bad combination.”
He added: “There are people who think they’ve just got to be in on every deal that’s hot. … I think it’s totally crazy.”
Munger and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett have been crypto critics in recent years — and Munger has been a vocal critic of bitcoin BTCUSD,
“When you have your own retirement account and your retirement adviser suggests you put all your money in bitcoin, just say no,” Munger said at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in April. He later called the digital assets “stupid” and “evil.”
FTX paused withdrawals last week amid a multibillion-dollar liquidity crisis. Rival crypto exchange Binance had announced interest in an FTX takeover prior to the bankruptcy filing but opted against the move and later called the company’s financial issues “beyond our control or ability to help.”
Bankman-Fried saw his net worth plummet by billions of dollars after his company’s collapse. Financial groups that had backed FTX include Third Point Ventures, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, SoftBank 9984,
Bitcoin’s BTCUSD,
Source: finance.yahoo.com