The Oracle's Exit: What Buffett's Retirement Means for Crypto's Greatest Skeptic

Warren Buffett just announced his final bow. On November 11, the Berkshire Hathaway legend released what may be his last shareholder letter, signaling he’ll step down as CEO by year-end and accelerate share donations. The message: “I’m going quiet.”

But in crypto circles, people are asking a different question: Is this the end of an era?

A Decade of “Rat Poison”

Buffett’s relationship with Bitcoin reads like a decade-long rejection letter. In 2013, he dismissed it outright. By 2014, Bitcoin became a “mirage” with “no intrinsic value.” When prices exploded in 2017, he called it a “bubble” echoing tulip mania. Then came the phrase that stuck: “Bitcoin is rat poison squared.”

His logic never wavered: Bitcoin generates zero cash flow, can’t be valued by traditional metrics, and exists only as a speculative trading game. Even his blunt hypothetical—“If you offered me all Bitcoin in the world for $25, I wouldn’t buy it”—became gospel for value investors skeptical of crypto.

Charlie Munger, his right hand, went further. Where Buffett was rational, Munger was visceral. “Disgusting,” “stupid,” “evil”—his insults became legendary. In 2022, he compared crypto to a “venereal disease” and insisted it should be banned. His final verdict: Bitcoin “combines stupid, evil, and making me look bad.”

The Irony: Berkshire’s Crypto Backdoor

Here’s where it gets interesting. Berkshire never held Bitcoin directly. But in 2021, it invested $750 million in Nu Holdings, a Brazilian fintech bank. Seemingly clean.

Except Nu has since launched crypto trading services and Bitcoin ETFs, becoming one of Latin America’s biggest retail gateways to digital assets.

Translation: Berkshire bet on the infrastructure riding crypto’s boom while publicly denouncing the boom itself. Rational? Or a quiet admission that the market was unstoppable?

The Generational Shift

Munger is gone. Buffett is stepping back. The playbook of cash flow analysis and long-term compounding—their creed—feels increasingly dated as:

• Crypto ETFs proliferate across markets
• Sovereign wealth funds quietly build allocations
• Blockchain tech reshapes fintech infrastructure
• A new generation builds wealth in digital assets

Buffett and Munger represented financial order. They were right about many things. But their skepticism couldn’t stop the market’s evolution.

The real question isn’t whether they were right about Bitcoin. It’s whether their framework—valuation based on cash flow and intrinsic value—even applies to an asset class designed differently from day one. Their departure marks less a crypto victory and more a reminder that markets evolve whether the old guard believes in them or not.