Warren Buffett's Berkshire exits billion-dollar bet ahead of retirement

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Billionaire investor Warren Buffett stunned the investor community when he recently announced that he was stepping down as Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A, BRK-B) CEO by the end of 2025.

Now, the legendary investor has made a trade move that is bound to make waves in the crypto industry.

Though Buffett has strongly criticized crypto on several occasions, Berkshire Hathaway had stakes in Nubank, the Brazil-based crypto-friendly digital bank.

Nubank is the largest fintech bank in Latin America that announced allocating 1% of its net assets into Bitcoin and began offering crypto trading services in 2022.

As per Stock Circle, Berkshire Hathaway purchased more than 107 million shares of Nu Holdings (NYSE: NU) — Nubank's parent firm — in the fourth quarter of 2021.

However, the Wall Street giant has now completely divested of its holdings in Nu Holdings. It began selling its Nu shares from the third quarter of 2024 onwards.

The holding company sold 20.7 million Nu shares in Q3 2024, 46.3 million shares in Q4 2024, and 40.2 million shares in Q1 2025.

Source: Stock Circle
Source: Stock Circle

The holding company successfully gained approximately $250 million by divesting of its holdings in the crypto-friendly bank over the course of a year.

During Q1 2025, Berkshire has retreated from its other financial holdings too. It shed more than 14.6 million shares of Citigroup (NYSE: C) and slashed its stakes in Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) by 48.6 million shares.

Buffett has on different occasions referred to Bitcoin as “probably rat poison squared” and a “gambling token.” Berkshire Hathaway never directly invested in crypto, and prior to Buffett's exit, its holdings in a crypto-friendly institution have also come to zilch.