Bitcoin price LIVE: BTC nears $10k as Warren Buffett, Bill Gates SLAM crypto 'rat poison'
BITCOIN recovered for its bank holiday lull last night to post a high of $9,442. However, billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates decided the time was right for another offensive against crypto, with the Berkshire Hathaway CEO calling it "rat poison squared."
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8.00am HEADLINES
Hello and welcome to our rolling coverage of all things cryptocurrency, including price, regulation, innovation and financial crime.
Bitcoin is priced at $9,322 at the start of the day, with Ethereum at $757 and Ripple at $0.83.
Headlines this weekend were dominated by three of the world's richest people using the platform their wealth provides to slam cryptocurrencies.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett called bitcoin "probably rat poison squared," and his partner Berkshire Chairman Charlie Munger said trading in cryptocurrencies is "just dementia."
While Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told CNBC that he would bet against bitcoin if he could.
He said: "As an asset class, you're not producing anything and so you shouldn't expect it to go up. It's kind of a pure 'greater fool theory' type of investment."
"I agree I would short it if there was an easy way to do it."
Updates below throughout the day....
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Suppose you could make a lot of money trading freshly harvested baby brains. Would you do it? To me bitcoin is almost as bad.
8.55am - UPDATE - 'Freshly harvested baby brains'
It's bitcoin bashing season and after Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett had his pop vice chairman Charlie Munger decided to join in the fun.
Munger told Yahoo Finance: "The computer science behind bitcoin is a great triumph of the human mind.
“They created a product that’s hard to create more of but not impossible. But I see an artificial speculative medium.
"It’s anti-social, stupid and immoral. Suppose you could make a lot of money trading freshly harvested baby brains. Would you do it?
“To me bitcoin is almost as bad.”