Bill Gates has renewed his criticism of cryptocurrency, saying he would not buy it and again describing the asset class as driven by market mania.
The latest debate started after former CoinDesk journalist Pete Rizzo shared a video clip of Gates on X. In the interview, the Microsoft co-founder said he would not choose crypto as a way to diversify investments and called it a "purely mania-driven asset." The post quickly gained traction, drawing more than 62,000 views and prompting a wave of reactions from the Bitcoin community.
Gates rejects crypto in diversification question
The clip came from an interview published by the APT channel on Aug. 28. During the conversation, the host asked Gates how he would allocate a small portion of a portfolio away from the U.S. dollar if the choices were the euro, cryptocurrency, gold, or the Chinese yuan.
Gates answered plainly: he would not choose cryptocurrency. He said he has long been deeply skeptical of assets that are "purely mania-driven."
He also compared the other options. Gates noted that gold had already climbed to $3,000 per ounce and joked that he had missed that rally. He added that the euro is less volatile, but said that over the long run he prefers a globally balanced stock portfolio.
Pete Rizzo’s post amplified the remarks
On Aug. 31, Taipei time, Rizzo posted the clip on X and summarized Gates’s view in sharper terms, saying the billionaire would "never buy Bitcoin." He framed the moment as a sign that the market is still early, writing that the world’s 19th-richest person is still calling Bitcoin "a mania driven asset" and concluding: "We are so early."
That framing resonated with many pro-Bitcoin users rather than discouraging them. In the replies, some treated Gates’s skepticism as evidence that Bitcoin has not yet reached full mainstream acceptance.
Crypto community turns the criticism into a bullish social signal
Bloomberg ETF senior analyst Eric Balchunas appeared in the comment thread and joked that Bitcoin "always pisses off the right people." Other users brought up Microsoft’s own history, pointing out that the company began allowing customers to use Bitcoin to buy Xbox games back in 2014.
The contrast became part of the discussion: according to those commenters, the company Gates founded was willing to experiment with Bitcoin payments more than a decade before Gates himself showed any sign of warming to the asset.
A familiar position from Gates
None of this marks a break from Gates’s earlier views. According to the source material, he has been a consistent critic of Bitcoin for years. In 2018, he described Bitcoin investing through the lens of the "greater fool theory," and he has repeatedly criticized the asset over issues including high energy use and anonymous transactions.
The latest interview did not introduce a new thesis. It did, however, revive a familiar clash between a major technology figure and the crypto community, with Gates restating his opposition and Bitcoin supporters turning that opposition into a rallying point.