Bill Gates Dismisses NFTs, Crypto As Shams 'Based On Greater-Fool Theory'

Gates didn’t hold back on sarcasm when he said, “Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world immensely.”

Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, has dismissed crytpocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as shams “based on the greater-fool theory.” Gates, who is also the founder of sustainable energy venture fund Breakthrough Energy, was speaking at the TechCrunch Sessions: Climate 2022 conference when he made the statement. Gates has been vocally opposed to crypto as a whole, recently going on record to say that he doesn’t own any cryptocurrencies as he believes they don’t add to “society” like other investments.

Speaking at the TechCrunch event on Tuesday, Gates didn’t hold back on sarcasm when he said, “Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world immensely.” He was referring to the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, which is a set of 10,000 animated apes with various unique attributes, which has seen an all-time sales of over $2.19 billion.

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Speaking on NFTs and crypto as a whole, Gates said, “As an asset class, it’s 100 percent based on the greater fool theory — that somebody’s going to pay more for it than I do.” He noted that cryptocurrency is a market driven by sentiment.

As mentioned, this is not the first time Gates has spoken out against crypto. During an Ask Me Anything interaction on Reddit, Gates said, “I like investing in things that have valuable output. The value of companies is based on how they make great products. The value of crypto is just what some other person decides someone else will pay for it so not adding to society like other investments.”

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Unlike several other investors who are jumping on the crypto bandwagon, Gates doesn’t seem to be wooed by digital currencies just yet, as he said he wasn’t bullish on crypto in an interview with Bloomberg earlier in February. He expressed his concern for ordinary investors who are putting their money into cryptos. He said as a friendly warning, “If you have less money than Elon [Musk], you should probably watch out.”