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Microsoft founder Bill Gates is no longer a bitcoin bear. He has now taken a neutral stance on bitcoin as an investment. However, as an innovation, he says that cryptocurrency is a cryptocurrency that the world would be better off without because it allows certain criminal activity.
Bill Gates changes his mind about Bitcoin
Bill Gates spoke about bitcoin and cryptocurrency in two separate talks on Thursday. One was with CNBC where he was asked what he thought of bitcoin “in the context of climate change, seeing how bitcoin takes a huge amount of energy to be mined digitally. Gates simply replied:
I don’t own any bitcoin. I am not short of bitcoin. So I took a neutral point of view.
“Bitcoin can go up and down just based on mania or any other point of view, and I have no way of predicting how that will progress,” Gates continued.
The Microsoft founder added, “I think transferring money in a more digital form and reducing transaction costs is something the Gates Foundation is doing in developing countries. But here we are doing it so that you can cancel transactions so you have full visibility into who is doing what. This is not about tax evasion or illegal activity. “
Gates was not a fan of Bitcoin. In an interview with CNBC in 2018, he, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, and Vice President Charlie Munger, said bitcoin was worthless.
“As an asset class you are not producing anything, so you shouldn’t expect it to increase. It’s sort of a type of investment that is purely “the craziest”, ”Gates noted. “I would make it short if there was an easy way to do it.” BTC was trading around $ 9,300 that day. Since then, the price of the cryptocurrency has risen almost 511% to reach $ 56,805 at the time of writing.
Bill Gates thinks the world is better off without cryptocurrency innovation
Another interview published Thursday where Gates spoke about cryptocurrency was with the Wall Street Journal. Responding to the question: “What is the only technological innovation without which the world would be better?” he said:
The current functioning of cryptocurrency allows certain criminal activity. It would be nice to get rid of it.
However, Gates quickly added, “I probably should have said biological weapons. This is really a bad thing. We shouldn’t have the technology for it.
According to Forbes’ real-time billionaire list, Gates ranks fourth with a net worth of $ 124 billion. First on the list is Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, with $ 189 billion in net worth, followed by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and Spacex, with $ 182 billion, then Bernard Arnault with $ 159 billion.
Meanwhile, Microsoft obtained a patent for a “cryptocurrency system using bodily activity data.” This crypto-mining system exploits human activities, including brain waves and body heat, while performing online tasks such as using search engines, chatbots, and reading ads.
What do you think of Bill Gates’ remarks regarding bitcoin and cryptocurrencies? Let us know in the comments section below.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
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