Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger described Bitcoin as “totally asinine” Wednesday in what some consider will be one of his last public forums, Financial Times reports Thursday, Feb. 15.
Speaking at the 2018 annual general meeting of the Daily Journal Corporation, Munger, who is 94, outed himself as one of Bitcoin’s most outspoken naysayers.
Asked about what he described as the “Bitcoin craze,” Munger’s response was that it should receive a government crackdown.
“I expect the world to do silly things from time to time, because everybody wants easy money,” he told shareholders at the meeting.
“It’s just disgusting that people are taken in by something like this… Our government’s lax approach to it is wrong. The right answer with stuff that bad is to step on it hard.”
Additionally describing the cryptocurrency as “totally asinine,” Munger went further than even Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett, who in January admitted he “didn’t know anything about” the technology.
“I can say with almost certainty that they will come to a bad ending,” he nonetheless offered in comments to CNBC.
Cointelegraph has previously reported on how other major figures in traditional finance had U-turned on Bitcoin criticism in the past year.
Notably, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon claimed he “was not a skeptic” in private comments during January’s World Economic Forum, having said he regretted previously calling Bitcoin a “fraud.”