Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, revealed on CNBC this week that his firm purchased approximately $17 billion in US Treasury bills at the latest auction. Is a stock market crash coming and what does it mean for Bitcoin (BTC)?
Key takeaways:
Berkshire held $373 billion in cash or cash equivalents as of 2025’s close, more than double the levels in 2023.
The firm’s rising cash reserves typically precede major stock market crashes, a bad sign for Bitcoin.
Buffett still sees better value in cash than in stocks
Buffett’s message is straightforward: Berkshire does not see the recent equity pullback as a sufficiently attractive buying opportunity.
For context, the S&P 500 has fallen about 5.75% since reaching a record high in January.
S&P 500 weekly performance chart. Source: TradingView
Buffett said stocks are not “substantially” cheaper after the decline and described the sell-off as “nothing” compared with earlier downturns in which markets fell more than 50%.
That helps explain Berkshire’s latest Treasury-bill purchase. The company ended 2025 with about $373 billion in cash and equivalents, up from a record $334.2 billion a year earlier and more than double its level at the end of 2023.
Buffett, who famously called Bitcoin “rat poison,” typically gets into cash before major stock crashes, historical data shows.
In 1998, for instance, Buffett began trimming Berkshire’s stock exposure and raising cash, pushing the company’s cash and cash-equivalents holdings to $13.1 billion, or about 23% of total assets.
Berkshire’s cash and cash-equivalents holdings chart. Source: GuruFocus.COM
By mid-2000, that figure had climbed to nearly $15 billion, or roughly 25% of assets, before Berkshire started deploying capital into bargains as the Dot-com bubble burst.
Bitcoin’s positive correlation with stocks may hurt prices
Bitcoin has traded more like a stock than a traditional safe haven for much of the post-2020 period, often moving in the same direction as US equities, especially the tech-heavy Nasdaq.
As of Wednesday, the 20-week rolling correlation coefficient between the two markets was positive at 0.47.
Nasdaq Composite and BTC/USD’s 20-week correlation coefficient chart. Source: TradingView
If Buffett’s risk-off strategy is correct, then Bitcoin should see another crash alongside stocks. Fresh quantum-security concerns, war-driven inflation risks, and nearly 50% US recession odds are putting pressure on the BTC price.
Berkshire’s portfolio decisions have also leaned away from crypto-adjacent finance.
In the first quarter of 2025, the firm fully exited Nu Holdings, a crypto-friendly fintech company, after building its position in 2021 and 2022. It secured about $250 million in profits from these investments.
Multiple analysts predict BTC’s price to drop to as low as $30,000 in 2026.