Warren Buffett’s right-hand man and Berkshire Hathaway vice president Charlie Munger have urged the US government to ban cryptocurrencies as China has done. “A cryptocurrency is not a currency, nor a commodity, nor a value. On the contrary, it is a gaming contract with an advantage of almost 100% for the house,” he stressed.
Berkshire Hathaway Vice President Charlie Munger has urged the US government to ban cryptocurrencies in an op-ed titled “Why America Should Ban Cryptocurrency,” published Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal. The Berkshire executive wrote:
”A cryptocurrency is not a currency, nor a commodity, nor a value. Instead, it is a gaming contract with a nearly 100% house edge, entered into in a country where gaming contracts are traditionally regulated only by lax competing states.”
“Obviously, the US should now enact a new federal law that prevents this from happening,” Munger stressed.
The Berkshire vice president proceeded to refer to two precedents that may give insight into how to effectively ban cryptocurrencies. The first is China’s cryptocurrency ban, he said, adding that the Chinese government “wisely came to the conclusion that [cryptocurrencies] would do more harm than good.”
The second is from the 1700s, when England faced a severe depression following the failure of a speculative trading scheme. In response, the country banned public trading in new common shares for 100 years, Munger explained. During that time, “England made by far the greatest national contribution to the march of civilization, forcing herself to lead both the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution and, to top it off, spawning a promising little country called the United States.” he opined.
Munger concluded:
”What should the United States do after the cryptocurrency ban? Well, one more action might make sense: Thank the Chinese communist leader for his splendid example of uncommon sense.”
The Berkshire executive has long been a bitcoin and crypto skeptic; he has called BTC “rat poison” and compared crypto trading to “trading turds.”
He said in 2021 that he wished crypto had never been invented and praised China for banning cryptocurrencies. He also called bitcoin “disgusting and contrary to the interest of civilization.”
In February of last year, he similarly said that the government should ban bitcoin, calling crypto a “venereal disease.” In July, he advised everyone to avoid crypto as if it were an “open sewer, full of malicious organisms.”
