Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have seen tremendous growth since their debut in 2009. Initially launching for only $0.0008 per token, one Bitcoin is now priced at more than $37,000.
People have embraced crypto with open arms, with 106 million users worldwide in 2021.
The exponential growth and popularity of cryptocurrencies has created young billionaires like 29-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried, who made his fortune building crypto exchange FTX, and the Winklevoss twins, who were the first to join the crypto-billionaire club in 2017.
But many older billionaires have publicly hated crypto, only to contradict themselves with investments later.
1. Warren Buffett
Berkshire Hathaway's CEO has not refrained from bashing cryptocurrency, calling it "rat poison squared" and an unproductive asset that “has no unique value at all.”
In 2018, Buffett was certain that crypto "will come to a bad ending" in an interview with CNBC but ate his own words after investing $1 billion in a crypto-friendly bank this month.
Still, billionaire and vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger, remains sceptical, going as far as calling coins like Bitcoin a "venereal disease" and "beneath contempt."
2. Jamie Dimon
CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, shook the crypto market when he publicly called Bitcoin "a fraud," making the price drop by 20% in 2018.
People questioned whether he truly meant that or not, even accusing him of market manipulation after news leaked of J.P. Morgan traders using overseas accounts to buy Bitcoin during its slump.
But it seems like he still stands unbiased and firm in his beliefs even today. Despite his own company providing its clients access to crypto funds, Dimon said in a 2021 interview with CBS Boston that he will defend people’s right to participate in cryptocurrencies but will not engage in it himself as he sees "no intrinsic value" in it.
3. Mark Cuban
Shark Tank celebrity and billionaire, Mark Cuban, was also unimpressed by crypto at one point. He never denied its mechanics but thought it was unnecessarily complicated.
In an email to Forbes two years ago, he wrote that Bitcoin is "too difficult to use, too easy to hack, way too easy to lose, too hard to understand, too hard to assess a value."
He added that he'd "rather have bananas, I can eat bananas."
It looks like Cuban has had a change of heart since the onset of NFTs. In a recent speaking engagement at the North American Bitcoin Conference, Mark admitted to having a diverse crypto portfolio saying that it was when he minted his first NFT a year ago that he got into crypto. Now, Cuban considers himself a crypto “evangelist,” and is extremely bullish on the space.
4. Carl Icahn
Billionaire financier Carl Icahn was another critic of crypto. In 2018, he said that he found cryptocurrencies to be “ridiculous” but was humble enough to admit that he probably just felt this way because he didn’t quite understand them.
Concerned about its regulation and scared to take the risk, he added that he “wouldn’t touch that stuff.”
And just three years after these statements, Icahn said that thinking cryptocurrency doesn’t have any underlying value is a "little wrong-headed" as he deliberated a $1.5 billion investment in crypto in May 2021.
Howard Marks, Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference on October 19, 2021, in Beverly Hills, California.
5. Howard Marks
Wealthy investor Howard Marks had stated in 2017 that crypto was an “unfounded fad”, but now says to have reconsidered his previous stance, calling it a "knee-jerk reaction without information."
He is late to the game but is relieved that his son “thankfully owns a meaningful amount" of bitcoin.
"Investors predict that more mainstream use will increase the bitcoin price by about 1,500% over the next decade," writes Josh Howarth.
It seems like the only thing that stopped these crypto naysayers from adopting digital currencies was their traditional mindset and fear of the unknown much like when people criticized social media when platforms like Facebook and Instagram first launched in the early 2000s.
But as the Web 3.0, metaverse, and world of NFTs become more and more of a reality, just like these billionaires, sceptics will no longer have a choice but to change with the times.
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