Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway has made a $500 million investment in the parent company of the privately-held digital bank Nubank, which has been offering cryptocurrency investment products to its users.
According to CNBC, Nubank is a private bank based in Brazil that was founded in 2013, and has roughly 40 million customers. The company’s CEO has revealed an initial public offering is currently being planned but is a likely possibility in the future.
The $500 million investment is notable, as Buffett is a well-known bitcoin critic, who has in the past called the cryptocurrency a “gambling device” and argued they are worthless because they don’t produce anything. The investor has made a similar case against gold.
The digital bank notably acquired Easynvest, a digital investment platform, late last year. The platform allows anyone to invest without paying commissions and offers its users access to bitcoin exchange-traded funds and products, including 3iQ’s QBTC bitcoin investment product.
Clarification: Nubank's acquisition of Easynvest will allow for investment in Bitcoin via bitcoin ETFs
— Blockworks (@Blockworks_) June 8, 2021
Berkshire Hathaway has notably made significant investments in financial firms in the past, with traditional banks and insurance firms making up a large portion of its portfolio. In the first quarter of the year, however, Buffett had sold nearly all of his stake in Wells Fargo.
Last year the ‘Oracle of Omaha’ had also invested in gold mining firm Barrick Gold, but seemingly sold his stake in it a few months later. To the investor gold and bitcoin are non-productive assets, unlike businesses or farms. When investors buy these assets, he says, they’re just counting on the next person paying more for them, as the “asset itself if creating nothing.”
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