At the annual Berkshire-Hathaway shareholder meeting, billionaire investor
Warren Buffet declared he wouldn't buy all the bitcoin in the world for $20- but if you were to offer him 1% of all the farmland in the USA for $25 billion, he'd have the money in your hands by lunchtime. The reason he said this is because he's a student of the famous Dean of Wall Street, Benjamin Graham, and Mr. Graham asked a question that all investors should ask: if you could buy any asset you wished and hold it for as long as you wished, but you could not in any way know the price of said asset, would you still buy it?
The heart of this question is an asset's intrinsic value- its value beyond the price of the asset (that is, what people are willing to pay for it). When Buffet says he'll buy 1% of America's farmland, it's because that farmland has value beyond the price: people need to eat, and that farmland will produce the food. The companies he buys and invests in also have value beyond the price. One example: Coca-Cola. It pays a dividend (meaning Buffet gets money simply for owning its stock), but beyond that, it has a brand and a unique soda flavor that, while not valuable monetarily, is a hit with customers. How many Coke brand peripherals (grills, coolers, hats, etc.) have you seen? They have nothing to do with the soda, but everything to do with the brand. (Fun fact: Coca-Cola owns a copyright on the distinct shape of the Coke bottle. No other company in the world is allowed to manufacture bottles in the unique shape of Coke's bottles.) The Coke brand has value.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, seemingly has no value beyond what people are willing to pay for it (see the recent crash, from around $40k to below $20k) and the fact that it is hard-coded to have only 21 million bitcoin in existence (we're at around 19 million bitcoins). Calling it digital gold seems a bit exaggerated; gold can be used not just for currency, but also jewelry, medicine, food (!?), and more. Bitcoin, at this point in time, is simply lines of code on a computer, like this post. The only reason Bitcoin is worth more than this forum post is because people are willing to pay more (see also: Non-Fungible Tokens). Currently, Bitcoin has no intrinsic value.
Buffet was born in the Great Depression, and has lived through multiple recessions, so he has seen flash-in-the-pan companies and assets rise and fall. Assuming Bitcoin survives the next, say, thirty years or so, value investors like Buffet (assuming he lives that long) may give it a second look.
