Billionaire and co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, has commented that he has a “neutral view” regarding bitcoin, but that he does support the digitalization of money as a means of lowering the costs of transactions.
The comments were made during an interview with Squawk Box on CNBC. He also declared that he didn’t own bitcoin and was not shorting the crypto asset.
Since he left Microsoft, Gates has been busy leading the Gates Foundation alongside his wife, Melinda. He mentioned that the Foundation is working on creating a way for better transparency with money and reversing charges, being less focused on the issue of protecting anonymity.
Gates believes that the volatility of bitcoin’s price is driven by “mania,” which makes it difficult to predict the trajectory of the cryptocurrency.
In early 2018, Gates was quoted as saying that he would short bitcoin “if there was an easy way to do it” and mentioned that he received BTC as a birthday present, but that he’s sold it quickly.