Tech billionaire Bill Gates dismissed NFTs as “100 per cent based on a bigger hoax” – the financial concept that overvalued assets can make money as long as you find a bigger fool to sell them.
Speaking at an event on climate change Hosted by TechCrunchGates said he prefers investing in assets with tangible outcomes, such as farms or factories, “or a company where they make products,” and that he does not hold a position in cryptocurrency or the NFT. “I’m not involved in that. I’m neither tall nor short in any of these things,” Gates said, noting that he was also skeptical of assets designed to “avoid taxes or any kind of government rule.”
“Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys would greatly improve the world,” Gates said, referring to NFT’s flagship project, Bored Ape Yacht Club.
This is not the first time that Gates has expressed skepticism about cryptocurrencies. in an interview From February 2021He was concerned about the risks of ordinary investors buying bitcoin, especially when the value of the cryptocurrency was extremely volatile and could drop based on a tweet from a prominent investor, such as Elon Musk.
“I think people are bought into this obsession who might not have the same amount of money to spare,” Gates said in 2021. “My general idea would be that if you had less money than Elon, you should probably pay attention.”
Gates’ warnings about the volatility were spot on. When he was speaking in 2021, the price of bitcoin was rising and would reach $63,000 in April of that year. Then it drops dramatically, before rising again to an all-time high of more than $64,000 last November.
Since then, the price of bitcoin has collapsed again, and at the time of writing Trade just over $20,000. This dramatic fall is part of a broader set of convulsions that are then rocking the cryptocurrency world The collapse of the so-called “sedentary” tera in May and continuous failure Percentage cryptocurrency lending platform.
Likewise, the prices for NFTs also have fell sharply. Some of the biggest projects, like the aforementioned Bored Ape Yacht Club, have more than halved their value. At the same time, trading volume has increased, as buyers seek to snap up digital assets at extremely low prices. Like Gates, they may be subscribed to the bigger fool theory of NFTs – confident there would be more fools out there, if only they could find them.
“Infuriatingly humble alcohol fanatic. Unapologetic beer practitioner. Analyst.”