Bitcoin Skeptic Bill Gates Has Harsh Words for Crypto

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Bill Gates has never hidden that he is not a fan of Bitcoin and crypto-currencies.

The co-founder of software giant Microsoft (MSFT) – Get the Microsoft Corporation report just reiterated his dislike of the crypto industry as the digital currency market is in disarray.

Bitcoin, the king of cryptocurrencies, is now trading at its lowest levels since 2020. Bitcoin has fallen to the $20,000 level and given the volatility that characterizes this industry, it could drop below this psychological bar in the next hours.

It was down 9.6% to $20,618.65 at the time of writing, according to the data firm CoinGecko.

The cryptocurrency market was worth just $922 billion from $3 trillion in November amid the crypto craze.

Gates does not own any crypto

On May 19, Gates made it known on social media Reddit that he does not own any digital currency.

“I like to invest in things that have value,” the billionaire said on Reddit. “The value of companies is based on how well they make great products,” he wrote. “The value of crypto is just what another person decides someone else will pay for it, so no addition to society like other investments.”

This wasn’t the first time the world’s fourth-richest spoke out against Bitcoin and the crypto industry. The philanthropist previously expressed some skepticism about Bitcoin in an interview with Bloomberg in 2021.

He had said that he was concerned about the general population’s enthusiasm for cryptocurrency, and that unless you were rich, you shouldn’t buy Bitcoin.

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“Elon [Musk] has tons of money and he’s very sophisticated, so I’m not worried about his Bitcoin going up or down randomly,” Gates said. Bloomberg. “I think people get bought into these fads that maybe don’t have as much money to spare. My general thought would be if you have less money than Elon, you should probably be careful.”

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla (TSLA) – Get the report from Tesla Inc.is the richest man in the world, with an estimated fortune of $209 billion as of June 14, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Tesla announced on February 8, 2021 that it had invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. But the value of that investment is now $911.47 million with the fall of Bitcoin, according to Bitcoin Cash.

“Not Long or Short”

Gates just launched new criticisms against the crypto industry, during a Tech Crunch climate change conference on June 14.

The billionaire believes that crypto projects like non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are shams “based on the biggest fool theory,” which generally means that overvalued assets will rise when there are enough investors willing to pay more for them.

“Obviously, expensive digital images of apes are going to make the world better,” Gates said wryly, referring to the highly select and high-profile Bored Ape Yatch Club NFT.

NFTs are a way to own digital content, whether it’s a photo or a gif. They are built on the Ethereum platform, the largest in the crypto space and are sold in Ether, the native token of Ethereum.

The prominent Bored Ape Yacht Club has generated over $1 billion in NFT sales, with celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Madonna, Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon picking up their own apes.

“I’m used to asset classes … like a farm where they have production, or like a company where they make products,” Gates said.

As for crypto, “I’m not involved in that,” Gates added. “I’m neither long nor short in any of these things.”

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