Warren Buffett Net Worth, Crypto and NFT Investments

The net worth of Warren Buffett is estimated to around $117.1 billion and he currently ranks as the fifth richest person on earth. The legendary investor is the CEO and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Buffet’s success can be attributed to his consistency over the past few decades. He started very early, making his first investment at the young age of 11. This consequently laid the foundation of the soaring net worth of Warren Buffett.

It is worth mentioning that Warren Buffett joined the billionaire league in 1990. His encounter with Benjamin Graham at the University of Columbia had a huge influence on his investment career. Initially, Buffett had wanted Harvard University for his master’s degree, but unfortunately, he was not picked. He didn’t allow the rejection to let him down. Later, Buffett settled for the University of Columbia and was admitted.

Meanwhile, a significant path of the net worth of Warren Buffett is dominated by the recent successes attained by Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett acquired the stock of the firm when it was at a cheap rate. He bought the shares consistently for a while till he became the largest shareholder.

Warren Buffett’s Net Worth Since 2019

Early Life

Warren Edward Buffett was born on August 30, 1930, in Omaha, Nebraska. He enjoyed a good upbringing as the only son of Howard and Leila Buffett. The couple had two other girls with Warren Buffett as the second child. Meanwhile, Buffett showed interest in business and money-making at a very young age. This is quite a different path from his father who was a politician. Although Howard Buffett was also a stockbroker, Warren has a stronger passion for business than his father. It is an undeniable fact that Buffet’s family background helped in laying the foundation of his wealth.

He started his academic journey at Rose Hill Elementary School. However, in 1942, he alongside the rest of the family relocated to Washington, D.C. This was due to his father’s election into the United States Congress that year. Howard Buffett enjoyed a good political career which saw him serve in the United States Congress for four terms.

Despite winning elections through the Republican Party,  most of Howard Buffet’s political opinions and views were libertarian-oriented. As for his son Warren Buffett, he dedicated most of his time to reading about various business strategies. Warren Buffett often borrows and reads business-themed books from the Omaha public library. At age 7, he read a book titled “One Thousand Ways to Make $1000.” This book further sharpened his orientation and exposed him to various ways of engaging in profit-yielding investments.

Following his relocation to Washington, D.C. along with members of the family, Buffett attended Alice Deal Junior High School which was then known as Woodrow Wilson High School. He graduated from the institution in 1947. Meanwhile, Warren Buffett showed flashes of his interest in business and investment at a young age. His yearbook picture reflects this interest as it reads with the caption “likes math; a future stockbroker.” Upon realizing his son’s interest in business, Howard Buffett took his time to educate and mentor Warren.

Early Investment Career

Howard Buffett permitted his son to spend time in the customers’ lounge of a regional stock brokerage near his brokerage office. At age 10, Warren Buffett visited the New York Stock Exchange under the supervision of his father. At 11, the young boy had already invested in Cities Service Preferred for himself and his two other sisters. Also, he began investing in real estate at the age of 14. Then, he acquired about 40 acres of land which he later rented out to amass huge proceeds. Also, young Buffett sold chewing gum, Coca-Cola, and weekly magazines in his neighborhood.

As a hardworking lad, Buffett worked in his grandfather’s grocery store. Also, he sold golf balls and stamps and detailing cars. Among his notable business endeavors was his pinball machine. In 1945, Warren Buffett and a friend acquired a second-hand pinball machine for $25. They strategically placed this pinball machine in a barber shop. A few months into the business, the pinball machine turned in huge returns. It enabled the duo to acquire more pinball machines which were stationed across various shops in the neighborhood. To a reasonable extent, the business endeavor laid the track for the soaring net worth of Warren Buffett. After a while, they decided to sell the business for $1200.

Warren Buffett enjoyed a prosperous business exposition that he never thought of going to college. However, after much persuasion from his father, he applied and was admitted into the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1947. While at the institution, he joined the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. However, he left the institution and transferred to the University of Nebraska in 1949. He graduated from the institution that year bagging a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration at age 19. By the time he graduated from the University of Nebraska, Warren Buffett already gathered $9,800 in savings.

After his graduation, Warren Buffett again resolved to focus fully on his business and investment career alone. However, his father intervened again and encouraged him to instead advance his academic credentials. Consequently, Warren Buffett applied to Harvard University but was rejected. The university authority said he was too young then. Another attempt at the University of Columbia was successful. During his time at the institution, he met Benjamin Graham and exposed himself to his book; titled “The Intelligent Investor.”

Notably, Warren Buffett holds Benjamin Graham in high esteem and submitted to learn from him while at the University of Columbia. This thus enabled him to acquire the necessary knowledge needed to excel in business. In 1951, Buffett graduated; bagging a Masters in Economics. The legendary investor didn’t stop there as he later attended the New York School of Finance for a brief period of time.

Full Focus on Business and Investment

Around 1951, Warren Buffett realized that his mentor at the University of Columbia, Benjamin Graham was one of the board of directors at GEICO Insurance. He traveled to Washington via a train to persuade Graham to employ him at the firm’s headquarters. There, he met Lorimer Davidson, who later became his good friend. Warren Buffett discussed his interest to work on Wall Street with his mentor. However,  Benjamin Graham said no and instead advised him to look for a career elsewhere. The young Buffett tried to persuade Graham to consider him, but at some point, he offered to work for free. However, Graham still insisted on his decision.

Warren Buffett felt disappointed and consequently return to Omaha to work as a stockbroker. Also, he picked up a teaching role at Dale Carnegie’s public speaking course. There, he taught students about various investment principles. While at Dale, he acquired Sinclair gas station but the project struggled and failed to establish itself. In 1954, Benjamin Graham finally agreed to offer him a role in his investment company. There, he earned $12,000 a year as his starting salary. Two years later, Benjamin Graham retired and shut down his firm. But at that time, Warren Buffett had already gathered enough money to establish Buffett Partnership Ltd.

By 1957, he already had three investment partnerships. A year later, the figure increased to five. In 1961, Buffett revealed how he invested 35% of his partnership assets in Sanborn Map Company. During the revelation, he reflected on how the firm’s stock sold for just $45 per share about three years ago. Buffett said he acquired 23% of Sanborn’s outstanding shares and therefore became one of its directors. Within two years, Warren Buffett recorded a 50% return on his investment in the organization.

Berkshire Hathaway

By 1962, Warren Buffett had already become a billionaire. He acquired about $1 million from his partnership investments. According to findings, the portfolio of the partnership investment was worth $7.1 million at that time, but only $1 million belonged to him. Consequently, he merged the funds from the partnership investment into one and invested it in Berkshire Hathaway, a textile manufacturing firm.

https://youtu.be/fHLe0CJ69mc

Gradually, Warren Buffett acquired more shares from the firm, thereby becoming one of its prominent figures. After attaining a significant stake in the firm, he sacked the initial owner of the organization, Seabury Stanton in 1964. In 1965, the American made himself the director.

While serving in this capacity, Buffett leveraged his investment experience to deliver huge profits for the organization. Later, he bought out Jack Ringwalt, known as the majority shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway. This deal cost about nine million dollars. In 1970, Warren Buffett installed himself as the CEO of the firm and picked Ken Chace as the President. He also rebranded Berkshire Hathaway into an insurance firm.

In 1973, he extended his investment efforts to the Washington Post Company. Then, the brilliant CEO established a friendship with Katherine Graham who was one of the directors of the organization. Unfortunately, Buffett attracted unwanted attention from the United States Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). The regulator launched an investigation against him over the acquisition of Wesco Financial. The investigation enquired about the conflict of interest that might be attached to the takeover. However, SEC didn’t bring forward any charges against Warren Buffett or Berkshire Hathaway.

In 1979, Berkshire Hathaway purchased some stock in ABC, a leading media firm. A few years later, the firm acquired additional 25% stake in the media outfit. This was after another media rival firm identified as Capital Cities pulled a surprising deal that saw it acquire ABC in a $3.5 billion deal.

Meanwhile, ABC was four times bigger than Capital Cities. So Berkshire Hathaway got the 25% stake in ABC due to its contribution to the takeover. Interestingly, Buffett completed the transition of Berkshire Hathaway by selling the remaining textile-producing mills of the organization. He admitted at some point that the textile business was his worst investment.

Nevertheless, he was able to place Berkshire Hathaway on the global map. Buffett was able to achieve this goal due to the robust investment he made into it and the sale of its stock. Around 1987, Berkshire Hathaway under Warren Buffett acquired a 12% stake in Salomon Inc. The deal saw Berkshire Hathaway become the largest shareholder with Warren Buffett becoming the director of the acquired firm.

In 1988, Warren Buffett through Berkshire Hathaway, bought Coca-Cola stock. Then, he acquired about 7% of the company for $1.02 billion. This investment decision helped soar the financial strength of the firm. It also placed Buffett as the richest man in the world in 1990. Warren Buffett’s investment style was regarded as “Cigar Butt.” This is because he usually invests in firms at their early stage, with the hope that the investment would yield dividends in the future.

Berkshire Hathaway enjoyed significant success under Warren Buffett. In 1990, Buffett became a billionaire when Berkshire Hathaway began selling class A shares. The market closed at $7,175 per share. He made more fortunes in 2002 after signing an $11 billion deal to deliver U.S. dollars against other currencies. As of April 2006, Warren Buffett gained more than $2 billion from the deal. In 2007, Buffett, through a letter to stakeholders, announced his intention to step down from his active role in the organization. He communicated that the stakeholders should help him find a suitable successor.

In 2008, Forbes ranked Warren Buffett as the richest man in the world with about $62 billion net worth. He dropped to second in 2009 and 2013 respectively after donating a larger part of his wealth to Charity. As of August 2014, the value of the firm’s shares went up to $200,000 per share. With that, Berkshire Hathaway’s market capitalization soared to $328 billion. Despite donating the larger part of his shares to charity, Warren Buffett’s 321,000 shares were worth $64.2 billion as of then.

Is Warren Buffett Pro Crypto?

Warren Buffett, has, over the past few years, established himself as a vocal crypto critic. He is not passionate about cryptocurrencies and has consistently demonstrated his harsh stance against the assets. At a time, he described Bitcoin as a rat poison squared” and a “delusion;” urging investors not to venture into the market.

The legendary investor does not see Bitcoin and other crypto assets as productive investments; stressing that they offer nothing tangible. According to the nonagenarian; “whether it goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don’t know. But the one thing I’m pretty sure of is that it doesn’t produce anything. It’s got a magic to it and people have attached magic to lots of things.”

Surprisingly, the massive rise in the mainstream adoption of crypto in recent years has not been enough to convince Buffett. He still sticks to his skeptical stance on crypto and has not shown any willingness to change it. In a recent interview, he attributed the recent success around Bitcoin to the “fear of missing out” syndrome. According to him; the syndrome led investors in the crypto to making wrong investment decisions. Buffett usually wish he could change the trend but felt he does not “know how to turn back the clock on that.”

He added that “the urge to participate in something where it looks like easy money is a human instinct which has been unleashed. People love the idea of getting rich quick, and I don’t blame them…It’s so human, and once unleashed you can’t put it back in the bottle.”

Just like other known critics, Buffett maintained a consistent record of bashing and deriding the crypto market. He labeled those venturing into the industry as speculators and not investors. According to him; anyone buying Bitcoin and other crypto assets is only speculating and not investing.

Driven by his pessimism about cryptocurrency, the veteran investor, in a 2018 interview, placed a five-year bet against Bitcoin. He said; In terms of cryptocurrencies generally, I can say almost with certainty that they will come to a bad ending,” Buffett told CNBC in January 2018. “Now, when it happens or how or anything else, I don’t know; ” adding that “If I could buy a five-year put on every one of the cryptocurrencies, I’d be glad to do it, but I would never short a dime’s worth.”

At the time he made the bet against the crypto, it traded around $14,000. Meanwhile; barely four years after, Bitcoin proved all doubters, including Buffett wrong by surging to over $60,000. Although it later plunged, but not below $17,000 since then. Despite the surge, the billionaire investor still insisted that he would neither change his stance about crypto nor get exposed to it. In an interview with a known publication; Buffett reflected on why he does not believe in Bitcoin and crypto at large.

He said; “If you said … for a 1% interest in all the farmland in the United States, pay our group $25 billion, I’ll write you a check this afternoon,” Buffett said. “[For] $25 billion I now own 1% of the farmland. [If] you offer me 1% of all the apartment houses in the country and you want another $25 billion, I’ll write you a check, it’s very simple. Now if you told me you own all of the bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25 I wouldn’t take it because what would I do with it? I’d have to sell it back to you one way or another. It isn’t going to do anything. The apartments are going to produce rent and the farms are going to produce food.”

To Buffett, Bitcoin and other crypto assets lack intrinsic value because he feel they are backed by nothing. This thus justifies why he insisted that Berkshire Hathaway would not have exposure to crypto nor create one. While at the company’s shareholder meeting in 2022, the accomplished nonagenarian said; “assets, to have value, have to deliver something to somebody. And there’s only one currency that’s accepted. You can come up with all kinds of things — we can put up Berkshire coins… but in the end, this is money,” holding up a $20 bill, adding that “there’s no reason in the world why the United States government … is going to let Berkshire money replace theirs.”

Later that year, Berkshire Hathaway dissociated from a crypto website using its name and advise investors not to fall victim. In an official statement by the firm, it denied having any affiliation or relationship with the website, identified as berkshirehathawaytx.com.

Around 2020, Tron founder, Justin Sun won a $4.57 million bid to have lunch with Warren Buffett. Sun saw it as an opportunity to evangelize the currency of the next generation to the accomplished investor. The Tron founder was accompanied to the dinner by Litecoin founder Charlie Lee, Huobi CFO Chris Lee, Head of Binance Charity Foundation Helen Hui, and Etoro CEO Yoni Assia. The five crypto advocates did their best to convince Buffett and make him see the long-term potential of cryptocurrency. Although they all had a wonderful dinner outing together, efforts to turn Buffett into a crypto supporter proved abortive.

Just like Jim Cramer, the Berkshire Hathaway former CEO usually feature on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” show, using it as a avenue to talk down on cryptocurrency. When he featured in 2023, Buffett called crypto a “get-rich-quick” gambling scheme. He was quoted saying; “something like Bitcoin, it’s a gambling token. The urge to participate in something where it looks like easy money is a human instinct which has been unleashed and has always been there.”

"#Bitcoin is a gambling token and it doesn't have any intrinsic value. But that doesn't stop people from wanting to play the roulette wheel," says Warren Buffett on #crypto. pic.twitter.com/6MQAiyrS5J

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) April 12, 2023

Despite being a known critic of Bitcoin, Buffett adores blockchain, the underlying technology behind crypto. He believes in the potential of the innovation to reform the financial sector and disrupt the world. Describing it as “ingenious” and “important,” the accomplished investment veteran is always optimistic that the use cases of blockchain will expand over time.

Crypto and NFT Holdings of Warren Buffett

We can establish that Warren Buffett does not have a personal crypto and NFT portfolio. Even, he is not considering having one in the future as his mind is totally made up against crypto. The legendary investor does not see such investment as worthwhile and, has over the years, slammed those who ventured into it. Although he had his first crypto assets after meeting Sun at the dinner, Buffett gave it all to charity. The assets, including 1,930,830 TRX equivalent to $43,536 at that time, 1 BTC, and many more were initially given to him as gifts by Sun. However, Warren Buffett insisted that he does not want to own crypto, stressing that the assets cannot impact his net worth.

Meanwhile, according to credible sources, the crypto critic has an indirect exposure to Bitcoin through his shares in Nubank, a Brazillian crypto-friendly bank. It is worth mentioning that Warren Buffett has, over the years, invested in various high-profile stocks to boost his net worth. Reportedly, he invested not less than $1 billion in the bank. Recently, the bank announced its resolution to offer Bitcoin offerings to customers and also allocate 1% of its portfolio to investing in the crypto. This, in no doubt establishes Buffett as an indirect investor in Bitcoin.

Certainly, Warren Buffett would have made fortunes if he had invested in Bitcoin, particularly at its earliest stage. Over the years, scores of notable Bitcoin investors became millionaires and billionaires through their long-term investment in the crypto. This is due to how the token had surged from about $60 to thousands of dollars in recent years. However, it won’t be surprising if Buffett softens his stance against crypto. Recall that he recently had a change of heart on Gold. The crypto community will be expecting that Buffett does the same with digital currencies.

Crypto Projects Featuring Warren Buffett

As one of the established critics, it is not surprising that Warren Buffett has been featured in Wall Street Memes. Over the past few months, Wall Street Memes has become so popular on Twitter and Instagram for its humorous content about trends in the crypto industry. It usually features numerous celebrities whose influence impacts the crypto market in its thrilling memes. Apart from Buffett, the likes of Elon Musk, Jim Cramer, and Changpeng Zhao have also been featured.

Today, Wall Street Memes is one of the crypto projects thriving with the support of its vast community. Recently, it launched the presale of its $WSM token. Although the presale is still ongoing, it has already secured over $1 million in investment. Participants in the presale are banking on the growing popularity of the project and see $WSM as one of the next cryptocurrency to flourish in the market. It is also not too late for you to join the presale, just visit wallstmemes.com.

Warren Buffett’s Net Worth – Our Verdict

We can regard Warren Buffett as an accomplished investor who has, over the past few decades, grown his huge net worth through the success of Berkshire Hathaway. According to our findings, he bought the stock of the firm when it was relatively cheap. Today, the billionaire has expanded his stock portfolio, thereby becoming its largest shareholder. At the moment, the net worth of Warren Buffett is estimated to be around $117.1 billion.

In 2008, Forbes ranked Warren Buffett as the wealthiest man in the world with not less than $62 billion. However, he couldn’t sustain the status for long after donating a significant portion of his wealth to charitable initiatives. This thus depicts the legendary investor as a man with a large heart.

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