Warren Buffett sold off Berkshire’s bank stocks and made no buys during Q1 market slump

By: cryptopolitan|2025/05/16 15:15:05
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Warren Buffett, who Google names as the greatest investor to ever live, didn’t use the first quarter dip to go shopping. He unloaded more than he bought, slashing Berkshire Hathaway’s exposure to banks while keeping his cash untouched.This was made clear in a Form 13F regulatory filing, which was made public after the market closed on Thursday. Between January and March 2025, Berkshire sold about $4.7 billion worth of stocks and only bought $3.2 billion.Most of those sales hit the financial sector. Warren reduced Bank of America holdings by 7.2%, trimmed Capital One by 4%, and dropped Citigroup completely. Those three had already seen reductions in late 2024, but the first quarter made the exit permanent.No new stocks were added. The only increases went to existing positions: Constellation Brands, the company behind Modelo and Corona in the US, and Pool Corp., which supplies pool equipment, both got their shares doubled.Warren Edward Buffett. Source: Warren Buffett Twitter/X.Buffett kept Apple and revealed plan to step downWarren held tight to Apple, which remained Berkshire’s biggest position. As of March 31, the company’s stake in Apple was worth $66.6 billion. He didn’t touch it this time, after previously selling off a chunk last year.During Berkshire’s annual meeting on May 2, held in Omaha, Warren said, “Tim Cook is one of the best managers I’ve ever dealt with.” At the same meeting, Warren dropped another major update—he’s leaving the CEO seat at the end of 2025.Speaking to The Wall Street Journal just yesterday, he explained why he made that decision, saying, “I’m finally feeling my age.” He’s 94 years old and said the time has come to pass the baton. Berkshire’s board approved Greg Abel, the man who runs the company’s non-insurance operations, to take over as president and CEO starting January 1. Warren will stay on as chairman of the board.Berkshire held back as market plunged before Trump’s tariffsThe 13F filing, which tracks large institutional investors’ stock holdings, showed Berkshire’s positions as of March 31—right before President Trump rattled the market with new tariff announcements. The S&P 500 dropped 12% over just four trading sessions, then rebounded.But that dip didn’t convince Warren to jump in. He was asked at the annual meeting if he saw it as a buying opportunity. “This has not been a dramatic bear market or anything of the sort,” he said.While Berkshire sat out, its cash kept growing. By the end of March, the firm was sitting on $333 billion in cash and Treasury bills, an all-time high. That number includes funds earmarked for short-term US government debt.Observers have been waiting to see if Warren will finally make a big move with that mountain of cash. So far, nothing. Even without buying, Berkshire’s Class B shares have risen 12% this year. The broader S&P 500 is barely up 0.6% in comparison.Investors, both retail and institutional, keep tracking Warren’s filings closely. Some copy his plays. Others are just looking for clues. But this quarter, the message was simple: he sold, he stayed quiet, and he’s preparing to hand over the reins.The company Warren built is now worth over $1.1 trillion. The legendary investor shaped Berkshire Hathaway into the most-watched business on the planet.Your crypto news deserves attention - KEY Difference Wire puts you on 250+ top sites

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Before using Musk's "Western WeChat" X Chat, you need to understand these three questions

The X Chat will be available for download on the App Store this Friday. The media has already covered the feature list, including self-destructing messages, screenshot prevention, 481-person group chats, Grok integration, and registration without a phone number, positioning it as the "Western WeChat." However, there are three questions that have hardly been addressed in any reports.


There is a sentence on X's official help page that is still hanging there: "If malicious insiders or X itself cause encrypted conversations to be exposed through legal processes, both the sender and receiver will be completely unaware."


Question One: Is this encryption the same as Signal's encryption?


No. The difference lies in where the keys are stored.


In Signal's end-to-end encryption, the keys never leave your device. X, the court, or any external party does not hold your keys. Signal's servers have nothing to decrypt your messages; even if they were subpoenaed, they could only provide registration timestamps and last connection times, as evidenced by past subpoena records.


X Chat uses the Juicebox protocol. This solution divides the key into three parts, each stored on three servers operated by X. When recovering the key with a PIN code, the system retrieves these three shards from X's servers and recombines them. No matter how complex the PIN code is, X is the actual custodian of the key, not the user.


This is the technical background of the "help page sentence": because the key is on X's servers, X has the ability to respond to legal processes without the user's knowledge. Signal does not have this capability, not because of policy, but because it simply does not have the key.


The following illustration compares the security mechanisms of Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and X Chat along six dimensions. X Chat is the only one of the four where the platform holds the key and the only one without Forward Secrecy.


The significance of Forward Secrecy is that even if a key is compromised at a certain point in time, historical messages cannot be decrypted because each message has a unique key. Signal's Double Ratchet protocol automatically updates the key after each message, a mechanism lacking in X Chat.


After analyzing the X Chat architecture in June 2025, Johns Hopkins University cryptology professor Matthew Green commented, "If we judge XChat as an end-to-end encryption scheme, this seems like a pretty game-over type of vulnerability." He later added, "I would not trust this any more than I trust current unencrypted DMs."


From a September 2025 TechCrunch report to being live in April 2026, this architecture saw no changes.


In a February 9, 2026 tweet, Musk pledged to undergo rigorous security tests of X Chat before its launch on X Chat and to open source all the code.



As of the April 17 launch date, no independent third-party audit has been completed, there is no official code repository on GitHub, the App Store's privacy label reveals X Chat collects five or more categories of data including location, contact info, and search history, directly contradicting the marketing claim of "No Ads, No Trackers."


Issue 2: Does Grok know what you're messaging in private?


Not continuous monitoring, but a clear access point.


For every message on X Chat, users can long-press and select "Ask Grok." When this button is clicked, the message is delivered to Grok in plaintext, transitioning from encrypted to unencrypted at this stage.


This design is not a vulnerability but a feature. However, X Chat's privacy policy does not state whether this plaintext data will be used for Grok's model training or if Grok will store this conversation content. By actively clicking "Ask Grok," users are voluntarily removing the encryption protection of that message.


There is also a structural issue: How quickly will this button shift from an "optional feature" to a "default habit"? The higher the quality of Grok's replies, the more frequently users will rely on it, leading to an increase in the proportion of messages flowing out of encryption protection. The actual encryption strength of X Chat, in the long run, depends not only on the design of the Juicebox protocol but also on the frequency of user clicks on "Ask Grok."


Issue 3: Why is there no Android version?


X Chat's initial release only supports iOS, with the Android version simply stating "coming soon" without a timeline.


In the global smartphone market, Android holds about 73%, while iOS holds about 27% (IDC/Statista, 2025). Of WhatsApp's 3.14 billion monthly active users, 73% are on Android (according to Demand Sage). In India, WhatsApp covers 854 million users, with over 95% Android penetration. In Brazil, there are 148 million users, with 81% on Android, and in Indonesia, there are 112 million users, with 87% on Android.



WhatsApp's dominance in the global communication market is built on Android. Signal, with a monthly active user base of around 85 million, also relies mainly on privacy-conscious users in Android-dominant countries.


X Chat circumvented this battlefield, with two possible interpretations. One is technical debt; X Chat is built with Rust, and achieving cross-platform support is not easy, so prioritizing iOS may be an engineering constraint. The other is a strategic choice; with iOS holding a market share of nearly 55% in the U.S., X's core user base being in the U.S., prioritizing iOS means focusing on their core user base rather than engaging in direct competition with Android-dominated emerging markets and WhatsApp.


These two interpretations are not mutually exclusive, leading to the same result: X Chat's debut saw it willingly forfeit 73% of the global smartphone user base.


Elon Musk's "Super App"


This matter has been described by some: X Chat, along with X Money and Grok, forms a trifecta creating a closed-loop data system parallel to the existing infrastructure, similar in concept to the WeChat ecosystem. This assessment is not new, but with X Chat's launch, it's worth revisiting the schematic.



X Chat generates communication metadata, including information on who is talking to whom, for how long, and how frequently. This data flows into X's identity system. Part of the message content goes through the Ask Grok feature and enters Grok's processing chain. Financial transactions are handled by X Money: external public testing was completed in March, opening to the public in April, enabling fiat peer-to-peer transfers via Visa Direct. A senior Fireblocks executive confirmed plans for cryptocurrency payments to go live by the end of the year, holding money transmitter licenses in over 40 U.S. states currently.


Every WeChat feature operates within China's regulatory framework. Musk's system operates within Western regulatory frameworks, but he also serves as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This is not a WeChat replica; it is a reenactment of the same logic under different political conditions.


The difference is that WeChat has never explicitly claimed to be "end-to-end encrypted" on its main interface, whereas X Chat does. "End-to-end encryption" in user perception means that no one, not even the platform, can see your messages. X Chat's architectural design does not meet this user expectation, but it uses this term.


X Chat consolidates the three data lines of "who this person is, who they are talking to, and where their money comes from and goes to" in one company's hands.


The help page sentence has never been just technical instructions.


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