Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and chief technology officer turned philanthropist, may not be a fan of bitcoin and digital assets.
Asked in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Thursday about what technological advances the world could do without, Gates said:
“The way cryptocurrency works today allows for certain criminal activities. I’d better get rid of that, “he added quickly.” I probably should have said organic weapons. It’s a very bad thing. “
Gates’ comments imply that billionaire technologies are not bitcoin BTCUSD,
BTC.1,
enthusiastic, but his observations may simply suggest that he believes cryptocurrencies are prone to abuse by scammers and money laundering systems – a common critique of the decentralized digital asset that was created in 2009.
During a CNBC interview on Thursday, Gates took a more moderate stance, describing his views on bitcoin as “neutral.”
“I don’t own bitcoin, I’m not short bitcoin, so I had a neutral vision,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s “Sqawk Box.”
“I think moving money to a more digital form and reducing transaction costs is something the Gates Foundation is doing in developing countries,” he added.
“Bitcoin can only go up and down based on anger or whatever points of view it is and I have no way of predicting how it will progress,” he said.
Bitcoin prices have experienced parabolic movements in the end, despite critics saying it is a technology that seeks to solve a problem that does not exist, while using excessive amounts of energy to create a single bitcoin.
Certainly not the first time Gates has talked about bitcoin and cryptos, but beliefs have faltered over time. In 2018, he said in a separate “Squawk Box” interview that he would bet against bitcoin if he could.
“As an asset class, you don’t produce anything, so you shouldn’t expect it to grow. It’s a kind of pure investment with a “bigger stupid theory,” Gates told CNBC two years ago.
Cryptocurrency prices traded above $ 52,000 on Thursday and have gained nearly 80% so far in 2021. By comparison, DIA Jones Industrial Media,
increased by 2.7%, the S&P 500 SPX index,
maintained a 4% year-on-year gain, while the Nasdaq COMP Composite Index,
has grown by almost 8% so far this year. Aur GC00,
an asset that Bitcoin often faces is down 6.4% since early 2021.
Gates, who prides himself on a net worth of $ 123 billion, according to Forbes, making him the second richest man in the world behind AMZN’s Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, has received more attention from his comments on the pandemic. COVID-19, which devastated the domestic economy and brought much of the world’s business and personal activities to a standstill.