Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder and technology genius who has become a philanthropist, may not be a fan of bitcoin and digital assets.
Asked during an interview published on Thursday with The Wall Street Journal about what technological advances the world could live without, Gates said the following:
“The way cryptocurrency works today allows for certain criminal activities. It would be good to get rid of it, ”he added quickly:“ I probably should have said biological weapons. This is a very bad thing. “
Gates’ comments indicate that billionaire technologists are not bitcoin BTCUSD,
BTC.1,
enthusiastic, but his remarks may simply suggest that he feels that cryptocurrencies are subject to abuse by swindlers and money laundering schemes – a common criticism of the decentralized digital asset that was created in 2009.
During an interview with CNBC that aired on Thursday, Gates took a more moderate stance, describing his views on bitcoin as “neutral”.
“I don’t have bitcoin, I’m not short on bitcoin, so I have a neutral view,” he said in an interview that aired on CNBC’s “Sqawk Box” program.
“I think that transferring money to a more digital form and reducing transaction costs is something that the Gates Foundation does in developing countries,” he added.
“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,” he said.
Bitcoin prices have seen parabolic movements lately, despite critics who say it is a technology that seeks to solve a problem that does not exist, while using large amounts of energy to create a single bitcoin.
To be sure, this is not the first time that Gates has discussed bitcoin and cryptos, but he has beliefs that have changed over time. In 2018, he said in a separate interview with the “Squawk Box” that he would bet against bitcoin if he could.
“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 ‘biggest fool theory’, ”said Gates on CNBC two years ago.
Cryptocurrency prices were trading over $ 52,000 on Thursday and have gained almost 80% so far in 2021. In comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
rose 2.7%, the S&P 500 SPX index,
was holding a 4% gain for the year, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP,
increased by almost 8% this year. Gold GC00,
an asset against which bitcoin is often opposed, has fallen 6.4% since the beginning of 2021.
Gates, who has a net worth of $ 123 billion, according to Forbes, making him the second richest man in the world after AMZNJeff Bezos of Amazon.com, has received more attention with his comments on the COVID pandemic. -19, which devastated the domestic economy and brought most of the world’s business and personal activities to a sudden stop.