Microsoft founder Bill Gates is no longer a bitcoin bear. He has now taken a neutral stance towards bitcoin as an investment. However, as an innovation, he says that cryptocurrency is one without which the world would be better off because it allows certain criminal activities.
Bill Gates changes his mind about Bitcoin
Bill Gates talked about bitcoin and cryptocurrency in two separate interviews on Thursday. One was with CNBC, where he was asked what he thinks about bitcoin “in the context of climate change, seeing how bitcoin consumes an enormous amount of energy to mine digitally”. Gates simply replied:
I don’t own bitcoin. I’m not short on bitcoin. So, I have a neutral view.
“Bitcoin can go up and down just based on the craze or whatever the views are, and I have no way of predicting how that will progress,” continued Gates.
The founder of Microsoft added: “I think that transferring money to a more digital form and reducing transaction costs is something that the Gates Foundation does in developing countries. But there, we do this so that you can reverse transactions so that we have full visibility of who is doing what. This is not tax evasion or illegal activity. “
Gates is not a bitcoin fan. In an interview with CNBC in 2018, he, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, and Vice President Charlie Munger talked about bitcoin being worthless.
“As an asset class, you are not producing anything and therefore you should not expect it to go up. It is a type of pure investment from the ‘greatest fool theory’, ”noted Gates. “I would reduce it if there was an easy way to do this.” The BTC was trading for around $ 9,300 that day. Since then, the price of the cryptocurrency has increased by almost 511%, to $ 56,805 at the time of writing.
Bill Gates thinks the world is better off without crypto innovation
Another interview published on Thursday, where Gates talked about cryptocurrency, went to The Wall Street Journal. Answering the question: “What is the only technological innovation without which the world would be better off?” he said:
The way cryptocurrency works today allows for certain criminal activities. It would be good to get rid of it.
However, Gates quickly added: “I probably should have said bio-weapons. This is a very bad thing. We shouldn’t have the technology for that. “
According to Forbes’ real-time list of billionaires, Gates ranks fourth with a net worth of $ 124 billion. First on the list is Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos with $ 189 billion in net worth, followed by Tesla and Spacex CEO Elon Musk with $ 182 billion, and then Bernard Arnault with $ 159 billion .
Meanwhile, Microsoft has obtained a patent for a “cryptocurrency system using body activity data”. This encryption system takes advantage of human activities, including brain waves and body heat, when performing online tasks, such as using search engines, chatbots and reading ads.
What do you think of Bill Gates’ comments on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies? Let us know in the comments section below.
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