Warren Buffett’s charity lunch with cryptocurrency entrepreneur postponed

By Reuters Last updated Jul 23, 2019

FILE PHOTO: Warren Buffett, Chairman, CEO and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway takes part in interviews before a fundraising luncheon for the nonprofit Glide Foundation in New York September 8, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun has postponed his $4.57 million charity lunch with Warren Buffett due to ill health, according to a tweet from Sun’s TRON Foundation.

Buffett, the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc (N:BRKa) who once called bitcoin “probably rat poison squared”, was due to have lunch with Sun on Wednesday, after Sun won a charity auction with a record $4.57 million bid.

Sun had said that he hoped the lunch would “bridge the gap between institutional and traditional investors and the realm of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.”

“TRON Foundation announces postponement of Warren Buffett lunch, press conferences after founder Justin Sun falls ill with kidney stones,” said a tweet from the foundation on Monday evening in the United States.

The parties agreed to reschedule at a later date, the tweet added.

Tronix, the foundation’s token, dropped 12.3 percent following the news, price data from Coinbase showed.

Buffett is highly skeptical of cryptocurrencies. At Berkshire’s annual meeting last month, he likened wagering on bitcoin to betting on zero or double-zero on a Las Vegas roulette wheel.

TRON says its goal is to establish a decentralized internet. It launched its TRX token in 2017, raising about $70 million in an initial coin offering, and acquired San Francisco-based BitTorrent for $120 million in cash last year.