Billionaire Michael Saylor responds to Charlie Munger’s criticism of Bitcoin – here’s what he said
Michael Saylor, co-founder and former CEO of MicroStrategy, has addressed Charlie Munger’s criticism of Bitcoin, claiming that he didn’t take the time to understand Bitcoin.
In an interview Friday with CNBC, Saylor said he was “sympathetic” to Munger’s criticisms of the broader crypto market,
indicating that thousands of altcoins are nothing more than ways to “gamble”. However, he argued that Warren Buffett’s right-hand man would have had a different idea of bitcoin if he had studied it.
“If an entrepreneur is in South America, Africa or Asia and spends 100 hours studying a problem,
Saylor explained that he would be more bullish on bitcoin, adding:
Western elites haven’t had time to study…but I’ve never met a motivated person living in the rest of the world who has spent time thinking about it who hasn’t been excited about Bitcoin
The remarks came after Munger’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies. Titled “Why America Should Ban Crypto,” the article argued that cryptocurrency is a “gambling contract” and urged regulators to act and provide a regulatory framework.
“Cryptocurrency is not a currency, it is not a commodity, and it is not a guarantee. Instead, it is a gambling contract with an almost 100% house edge, entered into a country where gambling contracts are traditionally only regulated by countries that compete in laxity.”
What Munger said in the editorial.
This is not the first time Monger has criticized digital assets. Previously, he said trading in cryptocurrencies is “sheer dementia” and described bitcoin as a “nasty mixture of fraud and illusion” which is a
Good for the kidnapped.
Notably, Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, also shares the same mindset as his friend Munger when it comes to cryptocurrency, calling Bitcoin a “rat poison box” in 2018.
Meanwhile, Michael Saylor’s big bet on bitcoin did not go as expected as the company reported a huge loss in the fourth quarter of last year. MicroStrategy’s net loss for the fourth quarter ended at $249.7 million, with the number dropping significantly from the loss of $197.6 million from the company’s bitcoin investment strategy.
However, in an interview with CNBC, Saylor said he remains bullish on Bitcoin. It also shares more details about MicroStrategy’s plans to develop Lightning software for enterprises. “Microstrategy is actually developing MicroStrategy Lightning, our enterprise Lightning offering,” he said, adding:
We’re going to allow CEOs to offer Lightning Rewards or Bitcoin Rewards, like our frequent flyer program, to hundreds of thousands or millions of their customers, all of their employees and all of their potential prospects, at the speed of light off a website — and we’re very excited about that.
