Warren Buffett Steps Back From Berkshire as His Crypto Skepticism Defines an Era

Warren Buffett’s decades-long campaign against cryptocurrency reached a symbolic endpoint this week with the legendary investor’s transition from CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. At 94, Buffett handed operational responsibilities to Greg Abel on Wednesday while retaining his role as chairman, concluding a 60-year tenure that established him as one of the world’s most influential architects of value-based investing. Throughout his final years in full command, Buffett’s vocal criticism of crypto—particularly Bitcoin—became as recognizable as his investment philosophy itself.

The “$25 Challenge” That Defined Buffett’s Crypto Position

Warren Buffett’s most striking formulation of his anti-crypto stance came during Berkshire’s 2022 shareholder gathering, where he posed a provocative hypothetical to tens of thousands of investors. “If you told me you owned all of the Bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25, I wouldn’t take it,” Buffett declared. His reasoning reflected the core principle underlying his entire investment approach: assets must generate returns or deliver utility. “What would I do with it? I’d have to sell it back to you one way or another. It isn’t going to do anything.”

Buffett contrasted this non-productive asset with tangible holdings like farmland or apartment complexes that generate ongoing income streams. He elaborated by holding up a $20 bill, emphasizing: “Assets, to have value, have to deliver something to somebody. And there’s only one currency that’s accepted.” This wasn’t casual dismissal but rather a systematic application of his foundational investment doctrine.

The “Rat Poison Squared” Evolution

Warren Buffett’s journey from skeptical observer to outspoken critic unfolded across multiple shareholder meetings. During Berkshire’s 2018 annual gathering in Omaha, when Bitcoin was trading around $9,000 following its dramatic collapse from nearly $20,000, Buffett escalated beyond his initial 2014 characterization. He told CNBC that Bitcoin represented “rat poison squared,” emphasizing the cryptocurrency’s speculative nature and fundamental absence of intrinsic value. The phrase captured Buffett’s view that crypto had no legitimate economic foundation—it was speculation built entirely on speculation.

This rhetorical intensification tracked with the crypto market’s own volatility, suggesting Buffett’s increasingly forceful language was proportional to what he perceived as growing societal delusion around digital assets.

Munger’s Unfiltered Verdict: Crypto as a Civilizational Problem

Warren Buffett’s business partner of decades, Charlie Munger, shared his skepticism with even more caustic language. At Berkshire’s 2021 shareholder meeting, Munger moved beyond economic critique to moral framework, calling Bitcoin “disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization.” In a 2022 Wall Street Journal interview, Munger doubled down: “I think I should say modestly that the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization and I’ll leave the criticism to others.”

Later, Munger became even more colorful, describing cryptocurrency as a “turd” and comparing its promotional machinery to the spread of a “venereal disease.” For Munger, the problem wasn’t merely financial—it was systemic, touching on how crypto undermined what he viewed as sound economic thinking.

The Philosophical Fault Line: Productive Assets Versus Speculation

The clash between Buffett’s worldview and crypto’s promise reveals a fundamental philosophical divide. Warren Buffett built Berkshire into a $1 trillion colossus by identifying businesses and assets with genuine earning power. When he acquired the failing textile mill that became Berkshire in 1962 at $7.60 per share, he recognized latent value that could be unlocked and compounded. Today, Berkshire’s Class A shares trade above $750,000—a transformation grounded entirely in owning productive enterprises.

This methodology leaves no room for assets that exist purely as medium-of-exchange or speculative vehicles. From Buffett’s perspective, crypto represents everything his investment philosophy rejects: volatility without fundamentals, utility without intrinsic value, and wealth creation divorced from productive capacity.

Buffett’s Crypto Dismissal as Strategic Consistency, Not Generational Bias

It would be tempting to frame Buffett’s positions as an aging investor’s resistance to innovation. However, his systematic rejection of crypto flows directly from his lifetime of generating returns through disciplined analysis. His $150 billion personal fortune—accumulated almost entirely through Berkshire shares despite donating over $60 billion to charity across two decades—stands as the empirical validation of his method. Warren Buffett didn’t build his reputation by chasing novel asset classes; he built it by identifying where real value actually resided.

The crypto industry might counter that blockchain technology will ultimately prove productive. But that argument doesn’t address Buffett’s core point: even if crypto’s underlying technology eventually matters, the current speculative market for Bitcoin and similar assets remains divorced from any productive utility that would satisfy his investment criteria.

What Comes Next: The Abel Era and Crypto Policy Continuity

With Greg Abel assuming operational control, observers wonder whether Berkshire’s institutional wariness toward crypto will persist. Given that both Buffett and Munger explicitly celebrated Berkshire’s avoidance of cryptocurrency holdings as a matter of principle rather than mere timing, continuity seems likely. The incoming leadership inherited not just a business empire but a philosophical framework that positions crypto skepticism as central to disciplined value management.

Warren Buffett’s transition from day-to-day leadership doesn’t mark an end to the tension between his investment model and the cryptocurrency market. Rather, it crystallizes how deeply his crypto critique flows from irreconcilable differences about what constitutes genuine value in asset allocation.