A technical blunder caused the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to display a near 100% loss for Berkshire Hathaway’s class A shares (BRK.A) on Monday, falsely suggesting the conglomerate helmed by longtime crypto critic Warren Buffett crashed from a market cap of roughly $900 billion to below $1 billion.
Although the error was fixed within a few hours, the incident has, without a glitch, spotlighted the appalling underperformance of Berkshire Hathaway’s stock against Bitcoin (BTC) over the past 10-year period.
Berkshire Hathaway Has Tanked 99% Against BTC Since 2015
While Bitcoin is well known for its volatility, the alpha crypto has outshined Berkshire Hathaway shares over the last decade.
Since 2015, Berkshire Hathaway shares have crashed by 99% versus Bitcoin. Specifically, the stock has fallen from roughly 900 BTC to just 9 BTC. This performance is interesting given Warren Buffett’s long-time aversion to crypto and blockchain. In 2018, the legendary investor infamously called Bitcoin “rat poison squared” and a gambling instrument.
Industry pundits suggest that Bitcoin could be rat poison, and the rat could be Berkshire Hathaway stock.
So he was right, BTC was rat poison for his stock.
— Willy Woo (@woonomic) June 4, 2024
Adding just 1% BTC into Berkshire Hathaway’s current portfolio, with its top stock holdings including Apple, Bank of America, and American Express, could have increased returns from 213% to roughly 242% on a five-year adjusted period, data shows. Furthermore, incorporating 5%–10% of the portfolio into the benchmark crypto could have achieved remarkable returns of 329%–411% for Berkshire in the same timeframe.
Bitcoin’s Soaring Value
Meanwhile, Buffett’s unfavorable opinion of Bitcoin has not prevented it from evolving into one of the world’s most valuable assets. The crypto’s valuation now stands at $1.398 trillion, making it the ninth-largest asset by market cap. This is more than Berkshire Hathaway’s $884.38 billion, according to data from CompaniesMarketCap.
Bitcoin’s market cap will likely increase significantly in the coming months and years, bolstered by institutional investor demand following the groundbreaking approval of spot BTC exchange-traded funds back in January.
Bitcoin, the market’s largest and oldest cryptocurrency, jumped over 3.5% in the past 24 hours, nudging just above the key psychological threshold of $71,000 earlier today.