Warren Buffett Openly Called Bitcoin A ‘Rat Poison’ In 2018. 7 Years Later, He Is Invested In This Crypto-Linked Stock Which Soared 27% In 2024 – Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC) Common units of fractional undivided beneficial interest (ARCA:BTC)

Despite his well-known disdain for cryptocurrencies, the ‘Oracle Of Omaha’ – Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway Inc BRK BRK has invested in a company that supports the cryptocurrency market and has soared by 27.43% in 2024.

What Happened: Buffett’s Berkshire had initially invested $500 million in a Series G funding round and subsequently another $250 million in Nu Holdings Ltd NU.

Nu, a Brazilian digital banking company launched its cryptocurrency platform, Nubank Cripto, in 2022. Berkshire has since added 0.3% of this company’s shares in 18 months as of the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2024.

Berkshire increased its holdings from 0.1% in the fourth quarter that ended Dec. 31, 2022, to 0.4% in the third quarter of fiscal 2025.

Initially supporting Bitcoin BTC/USD, Ethereum ETH/USD, and Polygon MATIC/USD, the platform, Nubank Cripto, now includes Uniswap UNI/USD and Chainlink LINK/USD. It allows users to send, receive, and convert cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins like USD Coin.

In 2018, during Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s annual shareholder meeting, Buffett famously described Bitcoin as “probably rat poison squared”. On the contrary, Berkshire has profited substantially through its investment in Nu.

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Why It Matters: According to its 13F filings, Berkshire held 86.438 million shares of Nu valued at $1.179 billion, as of the end of the third quarter.

With data for the fourth quarter not available at the time of writing, assuming that Berkshire’s holdings in Nu don’t change during this period, the value of these shares would have declined by 24.10% as of the quarter ended Dec. 31, when the share price was $10.36, as compared to $13.65 on Sept. 30, 2024.

However, Nu’s shares have risen by 27.43% in 2024, according to the data compiled by Benzinga Pro.

While Nu offers cryptocurrency services, one can argue in favor of Buffett that it’s not primarily a cryptocurrency company.

However, back in 2018, Buffett also said “In terms of cryptocurrencies generally, I can say almost with certainty that they will come to a bad ending.”

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