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Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

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Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#121
post #58

Sending small to large quantities of wealth worldwide quasi instantly and with small fees does have a tremendous value. Ask families of immigrants. Buffet hasn’t even invested in digital tech stocks. IMO, even after all the huge respect he deserves, he doesn’t get this technology. Other than that, I don’t doubt that many current “investors” are only FOMO movers

It's only very recently that he's started investing in tech stocks at all. And he's never on the leading edge. He's always been very clear about this. He doesn't want to invest in things that are bleeding edge and that he doesn't understand, and he's proud to say it.

Buffet is well-known for this and I often hear tech people dismiss his views as a result, but I think some people misunderstand what he is saying.

Buffet is concerned with companies that will have a long term competitive advantage and thereby generate stable and growing cash returns over long periods. He doesn't generally invest in technology stocks because he says it is hard to determine which companies have a competitive advantage that will be durable enough to produce long-term returns.

Look at Netscape, MySpace, or Yahoo! for companies that looked valuable but ended up not having a competitive advantage. It doesn't have anything to do with "understanding" technology---the question is the ability to pick the winners in advance.

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#122

Sending small to large quantities of wealth worldwide quasi instantly and with small fees does have a tremendous value. Ask families of immigrants. Buffet hasn’t even invested in digital tech stocks. IMO, even after all the huge respect he deserves, he doesn’t get this technology. Other than that, I don’t doubt that many current “investors” are only FOMO movers

What makes it so that Bitcoin will be the medium to send that wealth and not another coin if Bitcoin’s value is too volatile? Given you can have an infinite number of crypto currencies, should one necessarily dominate indefinitely?

Power law/positive feedback/winner take all dynamics make it likely there will be one or a few dominant ones and a lot of would-be's. Bitcoin has maintained the first mover advantage as well as the strongest engineering community thus far, so it will likely be one of those.

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#123
post #9

Bitcoin saves lives in Venezuela, you people need to get your head from your asses, first world is not the only world.

We've banned this account for repeatedly posting unsubstantive comments and ignoring our request to stop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#124

Sending small to large quantities of wealth worldwide quasi instantly and with small fees does have a tremendous value. Ask families of immigrants. Buffet hasn’t even invested in digital tech stocks. IMO, even after all the huge respect he deserves, he doesn’t get this technology. Other than that, I don’t doubt that many current “investors” are only FOMO movers

What do you consider a digital tech stock? He's the largest single shareholder of Apple:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/warren-buffett-ive-never-sol...

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#125

Sending small to large quantities of wealth worldwide quasi instantly and with small fees does have a tremendous value. Ask families of immigrants. Buffet hasn’t even invested in digital tech stocks. IMO, even after all the huge respect he deserves, he doesn’t get this technology. Other than that, I don’t doubt that many current “investors” are only FOMO movers

>Sending small to large quantities of wealth worldwide quasi instantly and with small fees Bitcoin Core cannot do that, Bitcoin Cash can. https://np.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6rxw7k/infor... https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7cwfm5/some... https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/929377620000681984 https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/930276246671450112

As can Litecoin, Ethereum, Monero, and so on: https://coinmarketcap.com/

BTC and Bcash are subject to ASIC centralization. Litecoin and other scrypt based algos have had ASIC hardware attacks developed recently as well.

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#126
post #90

Scrolling through these threads, I am surprised at how many people are suggesting that Buffet just doesn't get it. That's possibly not wrong. Buffet's desire to not get into stuff he doesn't understand is well-documented. He traditionally has stayed away from tech investments for primarily that reason, and definitely doesn't do bleeding edge tech when he finally does do tech. As the OP alludes to, Buffet actually com…

Buffett

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#127

"Rather, dollars are a temporary store of value, a means of transmitting that value from one person to another. As Buffett says, valuing bitcoin is like trying to value a paper check drawn on a bank. Pointless." I agree with the premise of the article, but isn't this quote a jump from that? Whats preventing bitcoin from being a temporary store of value to transmit from one person to another; Isn't there a second argu…

> its a bad _currency_

The problems that I see are:

1. There is a finite number of bitcoins, which means you can never have inflation, or in other words the bitcoin price is only going up tomorrow. So it doesn't make sense for people to spend it.

2. Mining. It costs a lot to mine a bitcoin. Imagine if the US government had to spend 1 billion worth of energy to print 1 billion dollars.

I think Bitcoin was designed to be analogous to gold. We stopped using gold as currency many years ago.

But then again, I know little about economics and finance, so don't take my word for it.

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#128

"Rather, dollars are a temporary store of value, a means of transmitting that value from one person to another. As Buffett says, valuing bitcoin is like trying to value a paper check drawn on a bank. Pointless." I agree with the premise of the article, but isn't this quote a jump from that? Whats preventing bitcoin from being a temporary store of value to transmit from one person to another; Isn't there a second argu…

> its a bad _currency_ The problems that I see are: 1. There is a finite number of bitcoins, which means you can never have inflation, or in other words the bitcoin price is only going up tomorrow. So it doesn't make sense for people to spend it. 2. Mining. It costs a lot to mine a bitcoin. Imagine if the US government had to spend 1 billion worth of energy to print 1 billion dollars. I think Bitcoin was designed to…

The political/economic climate around the time bitcoin caught on was also the Ron Paul/Austrian economics fad. They were calling the end of the USD and fiat currencies because central banks were risking hyperinflation. Lots of people were calling for a return to gold. BTC seemed even better. I think it's safe to say they were completely wrong about everything and orthodoxy won the day.

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#129

Buffett has described investing as ability to find the right pitch to swing at. He invests in companies which are within his "circle of competence": https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/02/warren-buffett-simplifies-in... This lesson is apparently lost on many people.

Buffett's whole approach to valuing companies to invest in doesn't really work for tech cos, especially software.

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#130
post #124

Sending small to large quantities of wealth worldwide quasi instantly and with small fees does have a tremendous value. Ask families of immigrants. Buffet hasn’t even invested in digital tech stocks. IMO, even after all the huge respect he deserves, he doesn’t get this technology. Other than that, I don’t doubt that many current “investors” are only FOMO movers

What do you consider a digital tech stock? He's the largest single shareholder of Apple: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/warren-buffett-ive-never-sol...

Buffett describes Apple as a consumer products company, not a "tech" or pure software company. Clearly, Apple is the outlier in the tech ecosystem.
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