News

Billionaire Bill Gates Changes Stance on Bitcoin – Here’s His Take on Crypto Mania

img-ads

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire entrepreneur Bill Gates is changing his tune on Bitcoin.

In a new interview, Gates tells CNBC’s Squawkbox that he is no longer bearish on Bitcoin, and now has a firmly neutral attitude towards the flagship cryptocurrency.

ADVERTISEMENT

“I don’t own Bitcoin. I’m not short Bitcoin, so I’ve taken a neutral view. I do think moving money into a more digital form and getting transaction costs down – that’s something the Gates foundation does in developing countries…”

In May of 2018, the tech titan told CNBC that if he could short Bitcoin, he would, asserting that the asset was being bought up by gullible investors and served no purpose.

“As an asset class, you’re not producing anything and so you shouldn’t expect it to go up. It’s kind of a pure ‘greater fool theory’ type of investment.”

Gates also disclosed to CNBC that when he was given some BTC for his birthday, he ended up selling it just a couple years down the road.

As of writing, Bitcoin is trading above $51,000 and if Gates had held his gifted Bitcoin, even if it was purchased at the 2018 top, he would have more than doubled his money.

Now, the billionaire investor says he has no prediction regarding Bitcoin’s next price movements.

“Bitcoin can go up and down just based on the mania or whatever the views are and I don’t have a way of predicting how that will progress.”

Don’t Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get crypto email alerts delivered directly to your inbox

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Telegram

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/minicase

img-ads

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published.

You may also like

Bitcoin Business

OKCoin delists two Bitcoin forks over ‘malicious misinformation’ campaign

While the original Bitcoin rallies past a $1 trillion dollar marketcap, two forks of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency have instead lost a source of liquidity as crypto exchange OKCoin delists BSV and BCH. 

In a blog post today, OKCoin CEO Hong Fang explained the decision to delist as one focused on protecting investors from a “malicious misinformation war.”

Fang noted that the exhcange regularly reviews listed assets across a variety of metrics, “including ecosystem development and ethos” as well as “ethical or reputational red flags,” and that the two forks were removed following the most recent review. Given the “unique history and context,” however, the Fang writes that the company felt compelled to explain their decision.

“When the news hit that Craig Wright — the infamous self-proclaimed creator of Bitcoin and BSV supporter — was taking actions to enforce copyright claims on the Bitcoin white paper, we…

View More Article
Bitcoin Blockchain Business Investment Markets Tech

You’ve got the power? Legacy banks aim high with new crypto offerings

Reports that legacy banks like BNY Mellon and Deutsche Bank are becoming active in the cryptocurrency space, including through custody services, should come as welcome news for crypto investors.

Lost or misplaced private keys, after all, are a bane of the crypto world — just recall the Welshman who lost 7,500 Bitcoin (BTC), worth about $400 million today, when he landfilled his PC’s hard drive, forgetting it was the sole repository of his private key. Meanwhile, traditional banks are society’s safekeepers par excellence, so maybe they can improve the crypto user experience with regard to private keys at the very least.

But if major financial institutions are indeed getting involved with cryptocurrencies — and not just in the custody area, as investment bank Morgan Stanley signaled on Feb. 13 a future investment in Bitcoin — why now? Is it just the soaring price of Bitcoin? Or…

View More Article
Bitcoin Investment Markets Opinion Tech

Bitcoin price hits $54K, reaching a $1T market cap faster than Amazon and Google

Within the last hour, Bitcoin’s market capitalization pushed above the $1 trillion level. This milestone occurred less than a year after its market cap dipped below $100 billion on Black Thursday and the move to a new all-time high took place right as BTC price is on the verge of overtaking $55,000.

Bitcoin market cap in USD. Source: TradingView

The significance of this event will not be lost of those working in financial as only a handful of assets ever achieve this status. While Bitcoin may have started as a mere curiosity in 2009, it only took it 12 years to become a global asset with a $1 trillion market capitalization.

For those unfamiliar with Bitcoin’s unique price history, 10,000 BTC were auctioned at the Bitcointalk.org forum in March 2010 for $50, but no buyer was found.

Two months later, Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 BTC, and the rest…

View More Article
Blockchain Tech

Binance’s brief pause of Ethereum withdrawals leaves community perplexed

Binance had a hiccup with its withdrawals for Ether (ETH) and all ERC-20 assets on Friday, with users being unable to access any of their Ethereum-based assets for about one hour. The pause came abruptly, as the exchange’s Twitter account notified users that Binance had “temporarily suspended withdrawals of ETH and Ethereum-based tokens in order to address a congestion issue.”

Binance reassured that “funds are SAFU,” but did not provide any further details. About one hour later, withdrawals were apparently restored but the exchange did not attempt to explain what prompted them to pause such a critical piece of its infrastructure.

The somewhat vague motivation of “congestion issues” seems to have indicated that Ethereum’s high gas fees had something to do with the pause. The community showed skepticism at such an explanation, with Red, a moderator in the Harvest Finance community, drawing a…

View More Article
Bitcoin Business Markets

Bitcoin’s market cap breaks $1 trillion after tripling in three months

Bitcoin has rallied into new all-time highs above $53,700, pushing its market cap above $1 trillion for the first time.

Bitcoin’s late 2020 rally appeared to be sparked by an unprecedented wave of demand from institutions and billionaires, with the trend set after the world’s largest publicly traded business intelligence company, MicroStrategy, revealed it had converted $250 million of its treasury into BTC on Aug. 11.

BTC/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

By the end of January 2021, MicroStrategy had invested $1.095 billion to accumulate 71,079 BTC or 0.38% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply. In early February, the firm hosted a free webinar providing strategies for incorporating Bitcoin into corporate treasury reserves and MicroStrategy is currently in the process of raising a further $900M to buy more BTC.

Institutional asset manager, Grayscale also aggressively ramped up its Bitcoin accumulation during 2020, with its Bitcoin Trust reporting an 872% increase in assets…

View More Article
Bitcoin Investment Markets Opinion Tech

The social side of institutional push: Popular excitement drives crypto adoption

The start of February has brought yet another batch of evidence supporting the notion that the ongoing surge of crypto prices has deep institutional roots. Ignited by market whisperer Elon Musk and his Tesla’s announcement of a $1.5-billion Bitcoin position, the bullish cycle was reinforced by further news coming from the likes of Mastercard, Amazon and BNY Mellon

The level of interest around the industry is certainly rising, as Bitcoin’s (BTC) price is rapidly becoming a widely discussed topic on most finance-oriented TV stations. With large corporate players at the helm of the rally, is the public firmly in the back seat, or does it have a say in how long the party will last?

The power of community

The power of corporate players to move crypto markets comes from two interrelated sources: their own capital invested in digital assets and the capacity to lead public sentiment,…

View More Article
%d bloggers like this: