Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah yes, something that's never existed before. While true in the technological particulars, it's dead wrong economically. There are all sorts of "never seen before" tradable things that show up in the economy. That people think that cryptocurrencies are so different is evidence that Buffet is right, not the economic newbs. See also the efforts to force "blockchain" into all sorts of round holes where it doesn't fit,…
There is nothing comparable to Bitcoin that previously existed. Gold is perhaps the closest thing.
And that's just it: nothing new economically about bitcoin. Nothing that hasn't been theorized to death by economists. Politically, it enables a currency for those with massively unstable governments. It enables some black markets. But the idea that this is something new that Buffet isn't getting, is just silly, and that's been borne out by the paucity of any sort of insight from the bitcoin pumpers. Buffet is right that the current soaring and unstable price is driven by FOMO. Nobody knows what the proper size of the bitcoin economy should be yet, and there's almost no way to value it rationally. The most rational pricing of bitcoin is still wild guesses, but the vast majority of purchasers are doing nothing even remotely like trying to establish a price. They are just buying and hoping it soars. Works great until it doesn't.