As cryptocurrency is a grand scam and it is run but scammers, billionaire Warren Buffett said, he won’t buy all of the Bitcoin in the world even for US$25. He told CNBC, “If you … owned all of the bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25, I wouldn’t take it”.
It may be mentioned here that, after hitting an all-time peak of around US$69,000 per unit on November 10, 2021, Bitcoin, the world’s leading digital currency has since erased roughly 67 percent of its value, sitting at about US$23,000 right now, and it will continue to fall further.
Warren Buffett has a well-known preference for stocks of corporations whose value — and cash flow — come from producing things. But cryptocurrencies don’t have real value, Buffett said in a CNBC interview in 2020.
“They don’t reproduce, they can’t mail you a check, they can’t do anything, and what you hope is that somebody else comes along and pays you more money for them later on, but then that person’s got the problem”.
Buffett has made his share of extremely cutting remarks about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency over the years: “I don’t have any Bitcoin. I don’t own any cryptocurrency, I never will”, he told CNBC back in 2020.
As a tradeable asset, Bitcoin boomed. But does it meet the three criteria of money? According to the most common definition, money is supposed to be a means of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account.
But Buffett calls it a “mirage”.
Following collapse of FTX and possibility of similar collapse of all other cryptocurrencies in the world, people are now realizing, crypto is nothing but a grand Ponzi scheme. People behind such fraudulent ventures, such as Sam Bankman-Fried would become millionaires and billionaires by stealing people’s life-time savings.
While the entire world has now become absolutely suspicious on cryptocurrency, Dubai is gradually emerging into the capital of crypto scammers, where dozens of fraud gangs are establishing offices and introducing crypto, despite the fact, thousands of people in the Middle East will fall victims of these rackets.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors continue to build their case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
The former crypto king on November 11, 2022 had to file for bankruptcy after two of his star firms, FTX and Alameda Research, were unable to meet massive withdrawal demands from their clients.
FTX is a cryptocurrency exchange and Alameda Research is a hedge fund and trading platform, both created by the former trader. The two companies were supposed to be independent, but according to the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, they maintained an incestuous relationship. Bankman-Fried is accused of transferring US$10 billion in client funds from FTX to Alameda.
FTX was using the client cryptocurrencies as collateral to borrow money, which in turn it had transferred to Alameda Research with which it shares several links. Alameda used this money to invest in crypto businesses and also for trading operations.
During a January 3 hearing in US District Court in New York, Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty. He was released after his parents, both law professors at Stanford University, signed a US$250 million recognizance bond pledging their California home as collateral. Two other friends with significant assets also signed, according to news reports. The trial is scheduled for October 8, 2023.
