- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway now owns 86 million shares valued at approximately $1.2 billion in Nu Holdings, which runs a crypto trading platform.
- Nu Holdings, which launched its cryptocurrency platform Nubank Crypto in 2022, supports major digital assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Uniswap, and Chainlink.
While billionaire Warren Buffett has reservations about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, his firm Berkshire Hathaway continues to expand its holdings in a crypto trading firm. The latest report shows that Berkshire Hathaway purchased an additional stake in Nu Holdings, a Brazilian digital banking company. This comes within a year of Buffet saying that they would never expand their holdings in the crypto space.
Berkshire Hathaway Increases Investment in Nu Holdings by 3x
As per the recent SEC filing, Nu Holdings disclosed that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has increased its stake in the company by 3x to 0.4% as per the third quarter of fiscal 2024. This marks a significant rise from the 0.1% ownership reported at the end of the fourth quarter of 2022.
Initially, during the company’s Series G funding round back in 2021, Berkshire Hathaway invested a total of $500 million in Brazil’s digital bank Nu Holdings. The investment giant later added $250 million, bringing its total investment to $750 million. Current estimates suggest Berkshire Hathaway now owns over 86 million shares of Nu Holdings, valued at approximately $1.2 billion.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett has been an ardent critic of Bitcoin, calling it ‘rat poison squared’ a few years ago in 2018. Besides, Buffett also stated that cryptocurrencies would have a bad end, however, Bitcoin and other digital assets have only continued to grow further since his comments.
Interestingly, Berkshire Hathaway seems to be shifting its stance by expanding its investment in Nu Holdings, a company that launched its cryptocurrency platform, Nubank Crypto, in 2022. Nubank Crypto supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Uniswap, and Chainlink, offering users core functionalities such as sending, receiving, and converting cryptocurrencies.
Will Warren Buffett Change His Stand on Bitcoin?
Despite Warren Buffett’s past criticism, Bitcoin (BTC) has continued to expand its footprint in the global financial system. Furthermore, with the successful launch of regulated products like the spot Bitcoin ETFs, the asset class has gained further legitimacy among institutional players. BlackRock Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) emerged as the fastest-growing ETF in history, with over $37 billion in inflows and over $56 AUM in the first year of launch, as previously mentioned in our report.
On the other hand, the newly elected Donald Trump government is considering the possibility of having a strategic US Bitcoin reserve, as detailed in our last piece. Trump has also said in his previous interviews that Bicoin could play a crucial role in reducing the $36 trillion US national debt. It will be interesting to see whether Warren Buffett has a change of heart for BTc moving ahead amid these key developments.
