Preface

Warren Buffet's opinion on cryptocurrencies is always widely covered. His main argument is that cryptocurrencies do not produce anything of value, and therefore he considers them a bad investment. Because they are speculative, i.e. you're speculating the next buyer will be willing to pay more. Warren Buffet has always favored "fundamental investing", where the investment itself produces something of value. Such as land that can produce crops or rent. The underlying asset can however also be subject to speculation. For instance: the world's population will increase (speculative), creating more demand for land, thus increasing it's value.

Hypothesis

POS Smart-Contract platforms turn the speculative cryptocurrency into a fundamental one.

Reasoning

Ethereum will switch from POW (proof-of-work / mining) to POS (proof-of-stake/ staking). Knowing the difference, and Ethereum's roadmap is crucial.

Rather then having miners doing the validation of the decentralized blockchain by contributing their GPU-power, eventually Ethereum-holders will be able to stake their ETH to become a validator of the network. Miners are incentivized to be honest and validate the blockchain by being paid fee's or newly minted coins. Stakers are incentivized because validating the blockchain by staking their ETH also guarantees a compensation, and dishonesty means losing your stake.

At this point the nature of ETH changes from being a speculative investment to becoming a fundamental investment for me. Vitalik Buterin said (09/05/2018) the minimum required ETH-stake will be 1500 ETH and that the pay-out rate would come to lie between 0 and 5% each year. This means that it is no longer the mining-device that acts as a fundamental investment ( =producing value). It becomes Ether itself. The blockchain protocol's pay-out for your staked ETH insures that you receive something of value. Also, fundamental investing can be plagued by uncertainty such as a person not paying his rent. In this case the blockchain protocol insures your pay-out. Which makes 0 to 5% DIVIDEND sound... rather good considering the certainty. Please note it should be considered a dividend, the value of the underlying ETH can still increase of decrease.

Conclusion

Assuming my view is correct, it would effectively debunk Warren's logic. Which in many crypto-cases, including Bitcoin is right as rain. I'm giving him all the credit he deserves here (and he does deserve A LOT), and I'm only using his own rhetoric against him. I think it's safe to say he doesn't know about this upcoming feature of Ethereum or POS as a whole. He would know not to make the same argument as he's done so far.

I'm very curious what you guys think about my train of thought! Do you think my reasoning is flawed?

Miscellaneous & Sources

-Disclaimer: this is not financial/investment advice. Always do your own research.
-1500 ETH is a lot to own before it can produce you something. People could potentially organize to put their ETH together, but a lot trust would be needed (smart contract?).
-Casper FFG will not NOT be running on full POS, it will be a hybrid between POS and POW. I'm assuming full POS would push the 5% higher. Since miners will no longer be there to reward.
-Vitalik Source: https://www.coindesk.com/the-economics-of-ethereums-coming-consensus-change-are-taking-shape/
-Warren Buffet source:
-Investopedia: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/difference-between-investing-speculating.asp