Billionaire Warren Buffett admits Bitcoin “got a magic to it” but won't buy for $25

Years after trash-talking Bitcoin and calling it “rat poison,” Warren Buffett appears to be finally coming around. However, the billionaire is not stoked by the performance of the world’s most populous cryptocurrency.

Speaking during a Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder meeting last Saturday, Buffett said that Bitcoin has “got a magic to it.” But that’s as far as his conviction goes. The billionaire vehemently expressed his disapproval of the asset class, noting that it is not a productive asset.

Assets, to have value, have to deliver something to somebody. And there’s only one currency that’s accepted. You can come up with all kinds of things- we can put up Berkshire coins… but in the end, this is money.

Buffet expressed his surprise at how people seem to only predict a beautiful future for Bitcoin, an asset that he argues is based purely on speculation and does not produce anything tangible. “Whether it goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don’t know. But the one thing I’m pretty sure of is that it doesn’t produce anything,” he said.

As expected, the business magnate chose other assets like real estate over Bitcoin. He explained:

If you told me you own all of the bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25 I wouldn’t take it because what would I do with it? I’d have to sell it back to you one way or another. It isn’t going to do anything. The apartments are going to produce rent and the farms are going to produce food.

While Buffett may not see any utility in Bitcoin, others like MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor have continued to bet big on the digital asset.