Bill Gates sustains his argument about why Bitcoin is too speculative and anonymous.
In the words of Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and one of the richest men in the world, Bitcoin is too speculative and anonymous. These thoughts also reflect that the cryptocurrency only works for sophisticated billionaires like Elon Musk.
In an interview yesterday led by the journalist Emily Chang of Bloomberg TV, Bill Gates highlighted some critical issues such as the Covid-19 pandemic, which has caused more deaths than a war; misinformation on social media; the investigations on Mars and the possibility of creating a new habitable planet; the reduction of the carbon footprint and Tesla’s role in this matter; digital money and Bitcoin.
Gates and Bitcoin: Users Must be Careful
According to Gates, a user should not explore Bitcoin if he is not as rich and “sophisticated” as the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, who keeps talking more about cryptocurrencies Dogecoin or Bitcoin on Twitter. And whose company, Tesla, bought last month USD 1.5 billion in BTC.
The journalist asked Gates what he thought of Musk achieving a single tweet to raise or lower Bitcoin. Gates replied that Elon Musk is a wealthy man and a very sophisticated character so that he won’t suffer any consequence by Bitcoin going up or down randomly or suddenly.
When asked about Bitcoin, Gates said: “Elon has a lot of money and is very sophisticated. I’m not worried about Bitcoin going up or down randomly […] My general thinking would be… if you don’t have enough money or more than Elon, you should be careful.”
Gates worries that people who don’t have a lot of money to spend “will get into these fads, but they can’t have that much money to spare.”
He also criticized two things about Bitcoin: the first was that such cryptocurrency requires too much energy (Gates is an environmental defender) and the fact that the transactions are anonymous and irreversible. However, Gates does consider digital money a good thing if users can track it and see who makes the transactions because it provides convenience and low cost.
He reiterated that the Gates Foundation, during the pandemic, is efficiently getting money and other aids to citizens. He says that, although it does not have the visibility of Bitcoin, “the movement of digital money towards which we commit is something very positive and will reach the poorest countries.”
Gates’s been talking about Bitcoin quite often when he hadn’t done it for years. Last week the billionaire mentioned that although he did not own BTC, he was “neutral” concerning Bitcoin. Before that, in 2018, he had said that Bitcoin was one of the craziest and most speculative things to invest. Gates thought back in 2018 that bitcoin would maintain a connection to the drug business and that dealing with cryptocurrencies brings high risks to investors.
By: Jenson Nuñez
