Too bad that what they are talking about is not crypto just regular tradfi ponzi schemers who happen to have chosen crypto for their next scam.
>crypto
>ponzi schemers
Literally the same.
Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018
21–30 of 161 posts
Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018
#22> There is nothing being produced of value from the assets. A guy like Warren Buffet can clearly appreciate value in the sense of institutions, after all he made his fortune largely in the insurance sector. We are still in the early stages of Crypto, only now we see serious DAO structures start to emerge. There is also a good chance that he will see his entire industry disrupted in some years as more efficient ways t…
Is an insurance DAO fundamentally any different from mutual insurance? What benefit does the blockchain provide? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_insurance
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Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018
#23Regardless of how you feel about crypto - and I admit to seeing some valuable use-cases, while being highly skeptical of the speculation - you gotta admit that these comments are prescient and also very funny. I sincerely hope I have that presence of mind at that age.
But the valuable use-cases could be solved using other methods efficiently.
Oh most certainly. We also have a ever growing list of JavaScript frameworks. Software developers are great at the NIH syndrome or not liking how something was solved and they like their way of solving it. Just because there is another solution path doesn't mean new solution paths to the same problem are void.
If you mean more efficiently then that is likely a dimension of the solution where it may not fit for some use cases. For example blockchain transactions are known to be slow when compared to say a RDBMS transaction. If you are recording purchases in a web shopping cart its probably not a good solution. The trade-off here is that for some problem, maybe the speed of the transaction is not a concern.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending, nor supporting blockchain solutions. Just pointing out that the "we have ways to solve those problems already" isn't a very valid argument in software.
Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018
#24Sorry but these two are not that great and their track record for the past decade is also not that great. They basically missed out on 10x type of opportunity just from 2018. They are in the money making business right? Last I checked, BTC is still 5x from 2018 low. Money is money. Return is return. Edit: from a purely financial point of view, you can make the same argument for companies that do not pay dividends/sha…
> Last I checked, BTC is still 5x from 2018 low.
The video clip appears to be form may 7th, 2018 [1]. Bitcoin was around $9200 at the time.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/07/berkshires-charlie-munger-bi...
Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018
#25Everyone with half a brain has predicted the failure of NFT's and the collapse of ridiculous get rich schemes such as FTX. The big problem is when recognising the (small amount) of value that actually is in the cryptocurrency/defi industry, to put your money to work in a smart manner. Sequoia is clearly not able to do so reliably, but in general it's incredibly hard to be long on a market that's so overhyped as crypto is.
Besides crypto there's a ridiculous amount of overhyped tech stocks on the market. None of the tech companies have a market cap that is anywhere close to being sane relative to their intrinsic value. I'm long on Tesla, but I'd never actually hold that position, because I'm long at a much lower value of their stocks than they have now. But you know, the market can stay irrational a lot longer than you can resist FOMO'ing into an overhyped stock, is how the saying goes right?
Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018
#26Sorry but these two are not that great and their track record for the past decade is also not that great. They basically missed out on 10x type of opportunity just from 2018. They are in the money making business right? Last I checked, BTC is still 5x from 2018 low. Money is money. Return is return. Edit: from a purely financial point of view, you can make the same argument for companies that do not pay dividends/sha…
They are not in the trading business.
You can’t make the identical argument for companies because they may return value to shareholders in the future. But there is the risk of management and governance, like we see now with Meta pissing away money on vanity projects instead of returning value to shareholders.
Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018
#27Everyone with half a brain has predicted the failure of NFT's and the collapse of ridiculous get rich schemes such as FTX. The big problem is when recognising the (small amount) of value that actually is in the cryptocurrency/defi industry, to put your money to work in a smart manner. Sequoia is clearly not able to do so reliably, but in general it's incredibly hard to be long on a market that's so overhyped as crypt…
Yes yes and yes. But: Microsoft?
Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018
#28Everyone with half a brain has predicted the failure of NFT's and the collapse of ridiculous get rich schemes such as FTX. The big problem is when recognising the (small amount) of value that actually is in the cryptocurrency/defi industry, to put your money to work in a smart manner. Sequoia is clearly not able to do so reliably, but in general it's incredibly hard to be long on a market that's so overhyped as crypt…
Yes yes and yes. But: Microsoft?
Elaborate please?
Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018
#29I'm not sure that the statements that a) there are bad actors in the space, and b) there will be a crash, are particularly insightful here. Both of these were predicted/expected by many, including many crypto supporters. The key question is whether crypto will rebound. I would expect it to, particularly as governments move more into digital currencies.
Especially since this wasn't a failure of "crypto" or anything decentralized actually built on it. It was a failure by a Wall Street trader who set up a centralized exchange in the Bahamas, and engaged in the sort of shenanigans that we've seen other Wall Street people do. Apparently everybody's forgotten that legacy finance had Madoff, all sorts of shady nonsense that collapsed in 2008, etc.
The point of crypto is to eliminate such attacks by removing the need to trust central actors like SBF and FTX. It's the reason people keep talking about "trustlessness."
This is not a panacea, and building reliable smart contracts is an ongoing technical challenge with its own social issues. To really work, users need to insist on solid audits and minimal special access for admins, just for starters. But those are different problems that had nothing to do with FTX.
Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018
#30Regardless of how you feel about crypto - and I admit to seeing some valuable use-cases, while being highly skeptical of the speculation - you gotta admit that these comments are prescient and also very funny. I sincerely hope I have that presence of mind at that age.
>I admit to seeing some valuable use-cases Could you write them here? Genuinely curious.
The general concept of having a medium and marketplace of exchange that isn't regulated/controlled has some value. It may have more costs than benefits in the grand scheme of things, though. I tend to support regulation in general, but I also see the value of something that has limited opportunity for opportunists to dig their fingers into and extract from without contributing real value themselves. To be very clear, I'm quite an opponent of cryptocurrency in the the big picture.
It could be that taxes become absurd or abusive in some governments or corrupt officials steal or waste their fair share. It may be that some government wants to prevent certain types of exchanges that the rest of society thinks are actually 'OK' and their government no longer reflects their interest.
For example, my significant other is filipino and in their culture, many leave the country to work internationally because of limited local opportunity. Part of that culture involves many sending money home regularly to their families. Sending that money has limitations and often goes through currency exchanges and other brokers who collect fees off that money. To my SO and their family, these groups are leeches providing no value.
I understand why some of these structures exist (to help reduce money laundering and criminal monetary exchanges, etc.) but most these folks sending money home are doing honest labor and simply trying to support their families abroad but have various middlemen sticking their fingers the pot. Crypto and exchanges could provide a viable route to avoid this and send wealth home with limited interference.