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Comment by rgbrenner | Hacker News Reader

"The asset itself is creating nothing," said Buffett, comparing bitcoin to "productive" assets such as gold or a farm.

wait.. gold is a productive asset now? This is contrary to economics literature.

Gold and bitcoin are very similar. They don't produce anything. Golds history is longer so is safer, but nonetheless, it's just something we've all agreed to use as a store of value.

I would be very interested in what Buffett thinks gold produces as it sits there. He's a smart guy, so I'm going to assume he misspoke.

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I don't think Buffett was comparing bitcoin to gold. He doesn't like gold investments for the same reason - it's not productive. He's talked about that a lot in the past.

The article implies he was dong just that. It's right there in the quote. Am I misunderstanding what you're saying?

The quote:

> "The asset itself is creating nothing," said Buffett, comparing bitcoin to "productive" assets such as gold or a farm.

That actually wasn't the quote, the remark about gold and farm was made by the article's author.

Edit: here[1] is the actual quote and video

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197491

This article has a good quote from Warren that likely better captures his view on gold.

http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-compares-stock...

If it's not in quotes, keep in mind it may have been misrepresented. Not even kidding. Sometimes the part in quotes is inaccurate too. This is Newsweek we're taking about - a living argument against ad support automatically leading to quality if there ever was one. I keep hoping someone will go into some depth on this topic, but nope.

Gold can be used in technology and teeth, so it has value. I think this is what he meant.

Good point.. but that doesn't make it a productive asset. A productive asset is something that produces an output--ie: something that generates an income for the owner of the asset. If I own a farm, the farm produces crops that can be sold.

Yeah, but that isn't why it's worth what it's worth.

That's not what he meant. Gold's value as a material is pennies on the dollar for gold as an investment. When people talk about 'value' of gold, they're referring to its use as a 'store of value'.

The quoted text is incorrect/misleading and it's not even in that particular embedded clip. What he said was:

"When you buy non-productive assets all you're counting is whether the next person is going to pay you more because they're even more excited about another next person coming along. But the asset itself is creating nothing. One of the interesting things for example is gold ... and it doesn't produce anything"

He compared Bitcoin to Gold directly as they are both non-productive assets. He then goes on to explain how a farm is a productive asset.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtITDtZPYEw

Gold have many industrial application.

It's a physical asset, that can be used to produce goods. Bitcoin produces nothing but wasted heat.

Heat isn't wasted if you live somewhere you need to heat your house anyway. Many people turn energy -> heat without any 'useful' byproduct in between. Imagine if instead they got free bitcoin or cancer research or server hosting in the middle - there's actually a company that is already working on that - putting servers in people's houses to heat them.

But anyway, it also produces a unique currency system with many benefits.

>“(Gold) gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”

-Warren Buffet

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