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Bill Gates: cryptocurrency is killing people

27 February 2018 21:00, UTC

The ex-chief executive of Microsoft Corporation has mentioned cryptocurrency in one of his latest interviews - “Ask me Anything” on Reddit, a popular social media website.

Bill Gates thinks that the anonymity provided by digital currencies is actually not doing any good contribution to the global processes. The fact that it hampers the work of the governments to trace illicit money flows and drug criminal syndicates (confirmed by Europol, by the way) is not making cryptocurrencies good in the eyes of Mr. Gates, as highlighted in his answer.

“Right now, cryptocurrencies are used for buying fentanyl and other drugs, so it is a rare technology that has caused deaths in a fairly direct way.”

The former leader of the company the operation systems of which are installed on the computers across the whole planet is also wary of ICOs which he calls speculative. In both notions about cryptos and this kind of market offering he is not being completely wrong: digital coins became popular among criminals long before they became mainstream among common people, and the sphere of ICOs is currently filled with various frauds and managers with poor skills.

The blockchain, a technology which underlies most cryptocurrencies, however, is being used in the newest cutting-edge platforms developed by Microsoft. This is a fact Mr. Gates preferred not to mention in his answer.

Image Copyright World Economic Forum swiss-image.ch/Photo by Andy Mettler