Years After Calling Bitcoin ¡®Rat Poison,¡¯ Warren Buffett Takes U-Turn, Invests $1 Billion In A Crypto-Friendly Bank

It seems that the crypto boom has made one of the greatest investors of all time, Warren Buffett, flip back on his words.

Nearly 4 years after labeling Bitcoin as ¡°probably rat poison squared'' at the Berkshire Hathaway 2018 annual shareholder meeting (as per CNBC) and warning investors against it, Buffett has apparently taken a U-turn and invested one billion dollars in a crypto-friendly bank.

The $1 Billion Investment

Earlier this week, Buffett¡¯s company Berkshire Hathaway made its crypto investment public with a SEC filing. The filing revealed that Buffett¡¯s company has purchased $1 billion in shares of a Brazil based digital bank named Nubank, which is the largest of its kind in Latin America.

Nubank, which is a so-called neobank, is a type of bank that operates outside of the rules of the traditional banking system. The ¡®crypto friendly¡¯ digital bank¡¯s investment unit, NuInvest, allows its users to put money in a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Also Read: Stolen Crypto Funding Behind North Korea¡¯s Nuclear Tests & Missiles Launches: UN Report

Not The First Investment In The ¡®Crypto Friendly Bank¡¯

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Surprisingly, this latest investment by Buffett¡¯s company in Nubank is not the first time they have dabbled in this market. Last year, Berkshire had already bought a $500 million stake in Nubank, months before the company went public in December 2021.

At that time, Nubank had announced that this Berkshire investment had been the largest single investment the fintech bank had ever received.

And while Berkshire was upping its investments into the crypto sphere in 2021, the company also dropped some of its other, more traditional financial assets. In the same recent SEC filing that showed the $1 billion investment in Nubank, Berkshire also revealed that it had dropped over $3 billion in its shares of Visa and Mastercard.

Also Read: Countries Where Cryptocurrency Is Currently Banned

Buffett¡¯s Long Term Business Partner Wants Crypto Ban

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Also Read: Meet The Dutch 'Bitcoin Family' Who Emigrated To 'Bitcoin Heaven' Portugal For Tax-Free Crypto

Contrary to this recent step by Buffett¡¯s company towards crypto, his longtime business partner and Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Charlie Munger has been quite vocal about his stance against cryptocurrency. As per Fortune, Munger had recently stated that he wished cryptocurrency had ¡°never been invented,¡± and he has even indicated that he would not want any crypto trader marrying into his family!

And that¡¯s not all.

Yesterday (16th February 2022), at Daily Journal Corp.¡¯s annual virtual meeting, 98-year-old Munger said ¡°I wish it had been banned immediately, and I admire the Chinese for banning it. I certainly didn¡¯t invest in crypto. I¡¯m proud of the fact I¡¯ve avoided it. It¡¯s like a venereal disease or something. I just regard it as beneath contempt.¡¯

Also Read: Big Four Ask Employees To Disclose This Year's Crypto Investments

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