Tech billionaire Bill Gates, the fourth richest person in the world, addressed society’s progress in supporting the climate movement, the current state of the global economy, and his skepticism about NFTs at the TechCrunch climate change conference on Tuesday.
The NFT market has been closely correlated with cryptocurrencies, which have depreciated significantly in the past months, with a 60-80 percent decrease in the value of formerly scrambling collectibles. As a result, skeptical approaches began to dominate the sector.
In his speech, Gates spoke sarcastically about the market’s most popular NFT collection, the Bored Ape Yacht Club. “We all agree that expensive digital images of monkeys will certainly improve the world a lot,” Gates said.
“I’m used to asset classes like companies that have output like a farm or produce products. An asset class based entirely on the big idiot theory, that someone will pay more than I do, with anonymity at its core that allows for avoidance of taxes or any law. […] I’m not into that. I don’t take long or short positions, I don’t do anything.”
In financial terminology, the big idiot theory refers to the inflation of an asset class like stocks or real estate, or even NFT, as it disperses among its “dumb” participants.
Gates often advises crypto investors to be careful when investing. The CEO of Microsoft finally said in February, “I actually think that those who do not have enough money to spare for this are drawn to these madness. I do not look at Bitcoin positively.”