MUNGER ON BITCOIN: 'The more popular it got, the more I hated it'

FILE PHOTO: Berkshire Hathaway Inc Vice Chairman Charles Munger speaks at the Daily Journal annual meeting in Los Angeles, U.S., February 15, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

Charlie Munger, the 94-year-old vice chairman at Berkshire Hathaway, ripped into bitcoin on Wednesday.
"I detested it the minute it had been raised," he said.

Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger just ripped into bitcoin.

The 94-year-old vice chairman at Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway referred to bitcoin as a "noxious poison" Wednesday during a shareholder meeting for the Daily Journal, a publishing firm for which Munger serves as chairman and director.

"I never considered for one second having anything to do with [bitcoin]," Munger said, according to a report by Yahoo Finance's Julia La Roche. "I detested it the minute it had been raised. The more popular it got, the more I hated it."

Munger thinks the government needs to step up its game when it comes to regulating the cryptocurrency.

"Our more relaxed approach is wrong," he said. "The right answer is to step on it hard. It's the government's job."

During a hearing on Capitol Hill earlier this month, J. Christopher Giancarlo, the chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, said the agency would take a "do no harm" approach to cryptocurrencies to spur innovation in the nascent market.

"I believe that 'do no harm' is the right overarching approach for distributed ledger technology," Giancarlo said. "With the proper balance of sound policy, regulatory oversight and private sector innovation, new technologies will allow American markets to evolve in responsible ways and continue to grow our economy and increase prosperity."

As for Munger, the cryptocurrency reflects the idea that "everyone wants easy money" more than it does human ingenuity.

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