Warren Buffett: Bitcoin is a 'real bubble'

Count billionaire investor Warren Buffett among bitcoin’s skeptics. The “Oracle of Omaha” reportedly told attendees of a Q-and-A session in Omaha, Nebraska earlier this month that the popular cryptocurrency’s exploding value is a bubble waiting to burst.

“People get excited from big price movements and Wall Street accommodates,” Buffett said, according to MarketWatch.

Bitcoin, which allows individuals to compensate each other for goods and services without traditional banking methods, currently trades at nearly $5,900. However, it is not backed by any government and its value has fluctuated wildly in recent years.

“You can’t value bitcoin because it’s not a value-producing asset,” Buffett told MarketWatch. He said that it is impossible to say how far bitcoin’s value will rise, adding that there is a “real bubble in that sort of thing.”

The world’s top business leaders remain divided about bitcoin’s long-term value. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said last month that the currency is a “fraud” that “isn’t going to work.”

“You can't have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think that people who are buying it are really smart,” he said, according to Reuters.

Separately, Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel defended bitcoin this week, telling FOX Business that it is “very underestimated” as a currency.

“It’s like a reserve form of money. It’s like gold and it’s just a store of value. You don’t actually need to use it to make payment,” Thiel told Maria Bartiromo during an interview at a conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.