Bill Gates says crypto-currencies cause deaths
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
So I suppose cash causes death in Bill's world view then?
>Yes - anonymous cash is used for these kinds of things but you have to be physically present to transfer it which makes things like kidnapping payments more difficult.
Link to the reddit conversation: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/80ow6w/im_bill_gates_...
Is it really that surprising the Bill Gates's solution would be to surveil everyone, considering what Windows 10 is like?
To be more precise, his point was that the ability to transfer large amounts of cash anonymously without any control or oversight is something that favours all sorts of illicit activities.
And cryptocurrencies in general and bitcoin in particular do just that.
Tangent:
There's a great TV show on Comedy Central called "Corporate". (It reminds me of Better Off Ted if any of you liked that series.) There is an episode titled, The Powerpoint of Death, where the main character creates a PowerPoint presentation to win a govt contract for a war.
It's virtually impossible to measure something like that of course, but the WHO estimates about seven million premature deaths occur per year due to air pollution, and certainly some portion of that pollution comes from electricity generation. With the enormous amount of power being sucked up by cryptocurrencies, it's not unreasonable to think that they're directly causing some non-insignificant amount of sickness and death.
In the group interview, Gates had harsh words for other speculative technologies. Elon Musk's Hyperloop concept of using a railgun to pull a passenger compartment in a low pressure tube at several hundred kilometers per hour was rejected: "I'm not sure that the Hyperloop concept makes sense ", he said. . "Make security is difficult."
But Gates was optimistic about the general direction of technology, dismissing fears that increasing automation could have negative consequences for the economy in general, and citing natural language understanding as the most promising technology for the next decade. To learn more about this type of cryptocurrency news just visit https://cryptonewstrends.com/
Ohhh by then I guess quantum secure coins will pop up!
Never mind ....
I can't see any justifiable reason for needing to hide crypto assets from the government in a developed country, other than wanting to hide them. If you need to hide your assets, please move to a 3rd world country where the government doesn't spend large amounts of money to stop your neighbor from running into your house with a gun and stealing your possessions
The biggest appeals of phasing out cash are the possibility of negative interest rates along with the erosion of privacy. But those are appealing to governments not citizens.
Providing any analogy from cash to crypto in ANY regard is simply never going to be bijective, so I would never apply the same logic. The entire point is that if I'm trying to hide "value" or "accrued value" from the government, crypto is and has been a considerably better option over other stores, including cash.
Many cryptocurrencies are well-tested vehicles for laundering money and conducting illicit business. Also, the speculative wave around ICOs does introduce volatility and jeopardize long-term value. Speculative waves have always acted like a double-edged swords when it comes to long-term investing. They bring in capital and generate excitement, but they can also create turbid markets dominated by people who don't care about fundamentals or first principles.
> Bill needs to stick with what he actually knows about.
In the four years you've been on this site, you haven't exactly dazzled us with any insight. Maybe you can break your 2 sentence limit today and explain why Bill is out of his element.
Some may even say condescendingly obvious
> I have no need to dazzle anyone.
I may have overstated things a bit for dramatic effect, but writing a short, cogent paragraph that shares your point of view will most likely not dazzle anyone. If anything, people will most likely simply read it like it was written by a regular user who uses the discussion board to discuss things.
Had Bill known people were going to seize on the wording of one answer in a Reddit AMA, I'm sure he would have chosen his words a little more carefully.
I speculate that the net result scaled for size is much bigger in Bitcoin :)
How did you come to this conclusion? At least Bill Gates gave his reasoning for his statement.
Also: Whataboutism.
.... ....
If we follow Bill logic, the guns that are used in school shootings were bought using US dollars so the US dollar is responsible for the deaths.
I thought it was so self-evident that no explanation was needed.
anonymity of digital currencies meant they were linked to terrorist funding and money laundering
It sounds like he means drug overdoses, black market violence, and terrorists attacks kill people.
But at least he knows malaria kills far more people than those three combined. He should probably get back to solving that.
Good news he is :)
Honestly, some of the responses in this article are a bit defensive-- he was asked what he thinks of crypto currencies, and he answered that he doesn't think the social impact of anonymous cash is good. There's a sense in this thread that he is going around attacking crypto currency, when he is in fact expressing his view of how anonymous decentralized currencies can enable/facilitate dangerous things to happen.