Warren Buffett, Bill Gates beat up on bitcoin buying as "crazy"
Bitcoin prices fell on Monday after billionaires Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Charlie Munger trashed talked the digital currency.
Doubling down on comments during the weekend, Munger told CNBC on Monday that just because bitcoin and the blockchain technology behind it is "clever computer science doesn't mean it should be widely used, and that respectable people should encourage other people to speculate on it."
Bitcoin, Munger went on to say, "reminds me of Oscar Wilde's definition of fox hunting: 'The pursuit of the uneatable by the unspeakable'."
Munger also lashed out at the cryptocurrency at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting on Saturday, calling the idea of trading it "just dementia."
Buffett, Munger's partner, piled on with his own unfavorable review. Speaking to CNBC on Monday, he likened buying bitcoin to purchasing gold as an investment. "When you're buying nonproductive assets, all you're counting on is the next person is going to pay you more because they're even more excited about another next person coming along."
Gates, too, weighed in on the issue on Monday, telling CNBC that bitcoin is "one of the crazier, speculative things" he's seen, saying he would "short it if there was an easy way to do it."
Shorting is a means of betting against an asset, where if the asset falls in value, the bet pays off; if the asset rises in value, then the bet loses.
In the moments after Gates spoke, Bitcoin lost nearly 30 bucks in value, falling to $9,323.27. It traded as high as $20,000 in 2017.
Monday's bout of bitcoin bashing is only the latest in a line of Wall Street notables including JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and BlackRock Chief Executive Larry Fink who've denounced bitcoin as a fraud or a financial bubble on its way to bursting.