The Microsoft founder believes that people with less money than Elon Musk should be careful about Bitcoin.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has issued a warning to prospective Bitcoin ( BTC ) buyers who want to follow Elon Musk’s investment strategy. Speaking to Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, Gates explained that Musk has access to complex trade management techniques that the average investor does not have.
In response to the statement that Bitcoin could collapse in response to a mere tweet (no doubt a nod to Elon Musk’s social media posts ), Gates stated that Elon Musk would likely be protected from such market collapses:
„Elon has tons of money and is very cultured, so I’m not worried his bitcoin could just go up or down like that.“
On February 23, just after Tesla’s 1.5-billion investment in Bitcoin more than two weeks announced , has the share price fell from Bitcoin by 20 percent from 58,258 US dollars to 46,624 US dollars. At the same time, the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has lost nearly $ 400 billion.
Interestingly, the slump occurred only a few hours after Musk himself had stated that the current Bitcoin and Ether ( ETH ) prices at the time were „high“ . Whether this was intended as a criticism or just an attempt to prevent a possible investigation into Musk’s influence on crypto rates, the entire market has collapsed as a result.
Gates said it would be a mistake for the average investor to blindly follow the manic optimism surrounding Musk’s market moves.
He advised people who are not billionaires to „watch out“. He explained:
„I think people get carried away with this mania who may not have that much money to spend. So I’m not optimistic about Bitcoin. In general, I think if you have less money than Elon, you should be careful.“
The Microsoft founder addressed the energy consumption of Bitcoin, suggesting that the cryptocurrency is not doing much in terms of performance.
„There are things in society that we invest in that perform. Bitcoin happens to use a lot of energy in the process. It just happens to promote anonymous transactions that are not reversible transactions,“ said Gates.
According to Gates, digital currencies aren’t necessarily a bad thing. But he believes they should be transparent, reversible, and essentially centralized. Gates described a few things that have been done with digital currencies since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. He noted that the Gates Foundation had used the technology to enable governments to distribute aid to their citizens.