Musk Vs Gates: Who is Right on Bitcoin

While Elon Musk has been driving a buying frenzy in the cryptomarket, anyone who has less money than the richest person on the planet should avoid investing in bitcoin, multi-billionaire Bill Gates says.

To be clear, I am *not* an investor, I am an engineer. I don’t even own any publicly traded stock besides Tesla.

However, when fiat currency has negative real interest, only a fool wouldn’t look elsewhere.

Bitcoin is almost as bs as fiat money. The key word is “almost”.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

February 19, 2021

The Microsoft co-founder, who boasts the third-largest fortune in the world and calls himself a “bitcoin skeptic,” took on the world’s most popular cryptocurrency several times this week.

In one of his recent chats on the popular Clubhouse app, he whined incorrecly that the production of bitcoin is harmful to the environment. “Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind,” Gates said.

The statement was a deliberate twist of news researchers at the University of Cambridge found that claimed mining consumes more electricity than some countries do – for example, Argentina.

As Bitcoin started to retreat this week, Gates said in an interview with Bloomberg that, while price fluctuations might not be a concern for the likes of the “sophisticated” and wealthy Tesla CEO, the risks would be worrisome for other people. “I do think people get bought into these manias who may not have as much money to spare. My general thought would be that if you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out,” he said. He never had those concerns about MSFT when he was in charge.

This week saw a pause to bitcoin’s record rally, as it retreated from a near-record $58,000 to its current level of around $47,300, according to data from CoinDesk.

Musk has been actively promoting the use of bitcoin, predicting it could soon win wider recognition. His company, Tesla, recently piled $1.5 billion into the cryptocurrency and explored the option of accepting it as payment. Despite defining the move as “adventurous,” he still believes investing in bitcoin is less “dumb” than investing in fiat money, he has said.

Musk has also been busy tweeting about another token, the joke cryptocurrency dogecoin, triggering another trading frenzy.

One of his recent tweets included an image of the coin’s mascot, the meme-famous Shiba Inu, standing on the Moon. 

Those dogecoin-related tweets have reportedly triggered an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). But the same body has done nothing about Citadel and the Shorting of Gamestop.