The tech billionaire speaking at an event on climate change hosted by TechCrunch said he preferred investing in assets with tangible outputs, like farms or factories, “or a company where they make products,” and that he held no position in cryptocurrencies or NFTs. He said and I quote “I’m not involved in that. I’m not long or short in any of those things,” citing that he was also suspicious of assets designed to “avoid taxation or any sort of government rules.”
Bill Gates dismissed NFTs as “100 per cent based on greater fool theory”— the financial concept that even overpriced assets can make money as long as you find a bigger idiot to sell them to. “Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world immensely,” quipped Gates, referring to the flagship NFT project, Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Bill Gate’s Skepticism
Bill Gates has always expressed profound scepticism about the reliability of cryptocurrencies. In an interview in February 2021, Gate fretted about the possible dangers of regular investors amassing Bitcoin, especially when the cryptocurrency’s value was so volatile and could be determined by a tweet from a prominent investor, like Elon Musk.
“I do think people get bought into these manias who may not have as much money to spare,” My general thought would be that if you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out,” said Gates in 2021.
Gates’ warnings about volatility were times when he was speaking in 2021. However, Bitcoin was surging unimaginably in price and reached a height of $63,000 in April that year before slumping dramatically. It only managed to rise to an all-time high of more than $64,000 last November.
Ever since the price of Bitcoin has crashed once and again and struggling to rise just a little above $20,000. This dramatic fall is part of a wider set of convulsions rocking the crypto world, after the collapse of the so-called “stablecoin” Terra in May and the ongoing failure of crypto lending platform Celsius.
NFTs on the other hand have also fallen sharply. Some of the biggest projects, like the forenamed Bored Ape Yacht Club, have dropped more than half their value. At the same time, trading volume has increased, as buyers seek to snap up digital assets at rock-bottom prices. Like Gates, perhaps, they< may be subscribers to the greater-fool theory of NFTs — confident that there are more idiots out there if they can only find them.