Bitcoiners Take Aim at Berkshire Hathaway Amid Stock Glitch

Bitcoin fans had a laugh at Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett on Monday after the billionaire investor’s company seemingly crashed 99% in value.

At 9:49 am ET, Berkshire’s class A shares (BRK.A) instantly tanked from $621,000 to just $185 apiece, prompting the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to halt trading for the asset temporarily.

In reality, the massive drop was triggered by an unexplained technical issue at the NYSE, which impacted a slew of other large companies, including the Bank of Montreal (BMO). The issue was resolved within a few hours, trading resumed, and BRK.A actually closed the day 0.59% in the green.

Still, the inordinately sized red candle wasn’t a good look for Buffett, especially as someone who has harshly criticized Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as being too speculative and volatile.

“Who’s the rat poison now eh,” tweeted Blockstream CEO Adam Back on Monday. “Rat poison squared” is what Buffett called Bitcoin back in May 2018, where he said he’d be glad to “buy a five-year put on every one of the cryptocurrencies.” Since that time, BRK.A is up roughly 114%, while Bitcoin is up roughly 600%.

Buffett’s late vice-chairman and partner Charlie Munger was also one of crypto’s most veracious critics, having called Bitcoin a “stupid” and “evil” investment that’s “very likely to got to zero.”

Many joked about the momentary annihilation of Buffett’s net worth, and the investment opportunity it presented. “Finally, I have a chance to acquire Warren Buffett,” said billionaire investor and Tron founder Justin Sun.

“If you bought $500 of Berkshire Hathaway 10 minutes ago it would now be worth over $2 million,” said crypto meme account “greg” after the stock recovered. “Let that sink in.”

Others, like crypto exchange Kraken, noted how Bitcoin trading can never be halted like BRK.A was on the NYSE. “Bitcoin fixes this,” tweeted famous whistleblower Edward Snowden on the matter.

While the Bitcoin network is 24/7 and never goes down, various centralized exchanges have halted Bitcoin trading and withdrawals on countless occasions—sometimes indefinitely. Many have had their share of explosive price glitches too, including a BTC flash crash below $9,000 on BitMEX just two months ago.

Buffett never publicly addressed the sudden Berkshire crash, though meme accounts were sure to put some words in his mouth, reminiscent of previous crypto catastrophes.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.