Bill Gates questions the value of NFTs and says the market is fuelled by speculation

The billionaire philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft shared his opinion on NFTs at the TechCrunch Climate Change conference on Tuesday, asserting that the crypto asset market is mainly based on speculation.

At the event, Gates questioned the value of NFTs, saying they are ‘100 percent based on greater fool theory.’ The greater fool theory suggests that one can always make money from buying overpriced assets because there is a 'greater fool' that would buy the asset for a higher price.

Gates also took a swipe at the hyped Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection and its buyers, jokingly saying, ‘Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world immensely.’ 

Affected by the ongoing crypto bear market, the floor price of the BAYC NFT collection currently sits at less than US$100,000, dropping from an all-time high of over US$420,000 in late April.

The tech billionaire also clarified his stance on crypto, saying that he's 'not involved' in crypto, ‘I’m not long or short any of those things.’ Instead, he prefers tangible ‘asset classes where like a farm they have output, or a company where they make products.’

This isn’t the first time the tech billionaire has shared his opinion on cryptocurrencies. Last month, in a Reddit AMA session, Gates revealed he doesn’t own any crypto because he prefers investing in ‘things that have valuable output.’

In another interview in February last year, Gates shared his misgivings on crypto. He highlighted that if the price of a crypto token is so volatile that it can be affected by a tweet from someone like Elon Musk, it could be unsafe for regular investors.

Compared to the beginning of the year, the value of cryptocurrencies has tanked in the markets, with multiple tokens losing more than half of their original values. For instance, Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, was priced at US$47,686 at the beginning of this year. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading slightly above US$22,000.

Photo: Forbes