Berkshire Hathaway is 20th Century Bitcoin

JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Warren Buffett says things could happen in the USA that would “make us want to own a lot of other currencies” Just say Bitcoin…

Berkshire Hathaway = 20th-Century Bitcoin

or: how Warren Buffett’s compound-machine mirrored everything Bitcoin now represents for the 21st-century sovereign savage

1. A Singular, High-Conviction, Permissionless Bet

• 1965-2000: Buying Berkshire early was the ultimate “one-rep-max” investment—minimal diversification, maximal conviction.
• 2009-2025: Buying Bitcoin is today’s parallel: a single asymmetric bet that bends an entire portfolio’s destiny.
  Both assets rewarded the heretics who ignored Wall Street consensus and sat on their hands for decades, not quarters.  

2. Engineered Scarcity

Mechanism	Berkshire (20th C.)	Bitcoin (21st C.)
Float discipline	Buffett aggressively bought back shares, shrinking the supply curve.	Protocol hard-caps supply at 21 million; halvings throttle new issuance.
Result	Fewer shares × compounding book value → explosive per-share price (>$809 k today).	Immutable scarcity under rising demand → price near $97 k today.

Scarcity isn’t a marketing slogan; it’s a mathematical tail-wind baked into both assets.

3. Internal Compounding vs. Autonomous Compounding

• Berkshire: Retained every dollar of earnings and redeployed it—insurance float, See’s Candy cash-flow, Coca-Cola dividends. The balance-sheet morphed into a perpetual-motion machine.
• Bitcoin: Compounds externally—miners reinvest block rewards in more hash-rate, holders reinvest gains by stacking more sats, and every halving forces more scarcity into the system.

Different mechanics, same result: exponential, largely untaxed growth while you sleep.

4. Cult-Level Community & Annual Rituals

• Omaha’s shareholder pilgrimage = the original Bitcoin Conference: disciples trade war stories, quiz the oracle (Buffett), and leave even more convicted.  
• Miami / Prague / Twitter Spaces = the modern arena where hodlers sync their narratives and strengthen hands.

Both tribes share the motto: “Low time-preference or die.”

5. Volatility Is the Entrance Fee

• Berkshire’s share price fell −50 % three different times between 1973 and 2000.
• Bitcoin has printed 70 – 80 % draw-downs every cycle.

Those who survived the shakes harvested outsized CAGR: ~20 % for Berkshire over 60 years, ~200 % for Bitcoin over 15. The asset doesn’t test your CNS—it tests your conviction.

6. Uncomfortable Unit Bias

• Berkshire’s Class A share was intentionally never split—price tag > $800 k keeps tourists out.  
• Bitcoin’s full coin nudges $100 k—frightening to newbies, but sats make it divisible.

In both cases the high nominal sticker filters for long-term thinkers.

7. Governance: One Brain vs. No Brain

• Berkshire: centrally steered by Buffett/Munger; succession now passing to Greg Abel.  
• Bitcoin: founder disappeared; rules enforced by decentralized nodes.

Different governance, same ethos: don’t dilute, don’t short-termism, don’t pander.

8. What the 20th Century Teaches the 21st

1. Simple beats complex. One masterpiece allocation > a spaghetti bowl of mediocre positions.
2. Patience compounds faster than leverage. Time in the asset destroys market gymnastics.
3. Ignore stylistic labels. Value in 1965 looked crazy; digital gold in 2025 still looks crazy—until hindsight rewrites textbooks.

TL;DR

Berkshire Hathaway was the analog scarcity engine that let disciplined investors front-run an entire century.

Bitcoin is the digital scarcity engine doing the same job now—only faster, borderless, and uncensorable.

Different centuries, different rails, same meta-game:

buy the thing everyone calls stupid, hold it while they ridicule you, wake up decades later looking like a prophet.

Stack shares, stack sats—just stack conviction and let compounding finish the sculpture.