Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are "kind of a pure 'greater fool theory' type of investment," Microsoft co-founder Costs Gates said Monday on CNBC's "Squawk Box."
"I agree I would short it if there was an easy way to do it," he said.
Gates added someone once provided him some bitcoin for his birthday, but he sold it a couple of years afterward.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said Mon he would guess against bitcoin if he could.
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 said on CNBC's "Squawk Box."
"I agree I would short it if there was an easy way to do it," he said.
The price tag on one bitcoin briefly soared $2,000 this past year to above $19,000 in mid-December. The cryptocurrency has since lost over fifty percent its value and was trading near $9,300 on Mon morning. Approximately $9.8 billion has been lifted through sales of new cash, or ICOs, since 2016, matching to financial research organization Autonomous Next.
"Bitcoin and ICOs, I believe completely [they're some] of the crazier, speculative things," Gates said. He added someone once offered him some bitcoin for his birthday, but he sold it a couple of years afterward.
Cryptocurrencies can certainly be shorted -- futures and put options for bitcoin have been offered through some exchanges, for example -- but making wagers against electronic currencies is much less easy as it is for competent property such as commercial shares.
Like many critics of the cryptocurrency price surge, Gates does say the primary blockchain technology acquired its merits.
Blockchain eliminates the necessity for a third-party intermediary, like a loan provider, by quickly developing a secure, long-lasting record of your purchase between two gatherings. Bitcoin is the first program of blockchain technology, and companies are discovering ways to use blockchain to provide string management, trading, and the areas.
Gates is on the mother board of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and was speaking from Omaha, Nebraska, where in fact the conglomerate performed its twelve-monthly shareholders' appointment over the weekend. Billionaire buyer Buffett and his longtime making an investment spouse and vice chairman, Charlie Munger, spoke to the thousands of attendees on a variety of issues, including bashing bitcoin as "rat poison."
Source: CNBC
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