Bill Gates reveals why he doesn’t own cryptocurrency

Bill Gates says he does not own any cryptocurrency because he prefers investing his money “in things that have valuable output”.

The Microsoft founder, who is the world’s fourth richest man with a personal wealth of $116bn (£92.8bn), made the comments during an “Ask Me Anything” event on Reddit.

“The value of companies is based on how they make great products,” Mr Gates wrote.

“The value of crypto is just what some other person decides someone else will pay for it, so not adding to society like other investments.”

Cryptocurrencies have seen around $1 trillion wiped off their value in 2022, with $200bn being erased in just 24 hours earlier this month alone.

Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, reached an all-time high of more than $68,000 in November 2021, but as of Saturday afternoon, had value of just over $29,300.

Mr Gates is not the only billionaire to avoid crypto.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett told his company’s annual meeting in April that he was extremely skeptical of it.

“Whether it goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don’t know. But the one thing I’m pretty sure of is that it doesn’t produce anything,” said Mr Buffett. “It’s got a magic to it and people have attached magics to lots of things.”