The Microsoft founder continued his criticism of cryptocurrencies as the market suffered one of its worst crashes to date. Gates continued his criticisms over NFTs.
Gates at the TechCrunch Sessions: Climate 2022 conference on Tuesday, sarcastically referencing the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, which have attracted millions of dollars and celebrity support, said:
“Frankly Expensive digital images of monkeys will improve the world.”
Gates was at the conference as the founder of the sustainable energy venture fund Breakthrough Energy. Gates described cryptocurrencies and NFTs as a market driven by sentiment. “As an asset class, it is 100% based on the big idiot theory,” Gates said.
The “big idiot” theory is a practice where people invest in overvalued assets, regardless of their true value, in the hope that someone else will come along and pay even more for it. But markets driven by the belief that there will always be someone willing to pay more may eventually hit a snag.
Gates previously criticized cryptocurrencies for not having any real value. “Crypto value is what someone else decides how much to pay for it, so it doesn’t contribute to society like other investments do,” Gates said in a Reddit question-and-answer session in May.
