Billionaire businessman Bill Gates believes that there is a “mania” for Bitcoin. The founder of Microsoft said that the SEC must pay attention to what happened with GameStop.
Billionaire businessman and founder of Microsoft Bill Gates recently said that he has taken a neutral view on Bitcoin (BTC). He also made it clear that he has not invested in the main cryptocurrency on the market.
Gates said that he does “not own any Bitcoin” in an interview with the US television channel CNBC, on the Squawk Box program. He also clarified that he is not short on Bitcoin, that is, he does not bet that its price will drop. For that reason, he has chosen to take a “neutral view” on the pioneering cryptocurrency.
The interviewer asked him about the role of Bitcoin in climate change due to the amount of energy that mining farms consume. However, he did not answer the question and decided to talk about the payment tools that his foundation has developed in vulnerable countries.
“The Gates Foundation moves fiat money in a more digital way, which reduces transaction costs in developing countries,” said Gates.
He also explained that his foundation promotes tools to make transactions that users in those countries can reverse. He said that this allows complete visibility of what each person is doing.
The businessman also talked about the volatility of Bitcoin and said that its price “can go up or down”. However, he believes that there is a “mania or whatever [people] want to call it” for the cryptocurrency. He believes that he has “no way of predicting what the future will be like” for the so-called digital gold.
Bill Gates’ current neutral view on Bitcoin is in stark contrast to his opinion in 2018, specifically on its privacy.
That year, he noted that “the main characteristic of cryptocurrencies is their anonymity.” He said that he did “not think that this is a good thing.” He highlighted that “the government’s ability to find money laundering, tax evasion and financing of terrorism is a good thing.”
Bill Gates and the GameStop Frenzy
The founder of Microsoft talked about what recently happened with GameStop shares on the US stock market in the interview with CNBC. He said that “people like to gamble and, sadly, it is a zero-sum game. They do it with the idea of driving valuation far beyond what is rational. It is difficult to view that as socially good use of time.”
According to Gates, people who buy stocks early make windfall profits, but those who buy late “can feel like fools.”
He also considers that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should review this type of situation. He believes that people cannot view the stock market as a mere casino.
Last January, Reddit’s group WallStreetBets came into conflict with Wall Street’s big companies, which made the GameStop trade phenomenon unfold. They produced a bullish rally for the shares of the video game store chain GameStop. That situation made Melvin Capital and other companies lose millions of US dollars.
By Alexander Salazar
