Bill Gates believes he is cryptocurrencies and NFT –registered digital images even in thousands of copies– they are bullshit. During a TechCrunch conference, Microsoft’s co-founder said both trends “100% based on the old idiot theory“The idea that investors can make a lot of money on worthless assets as long as a third party is willing to pay.

Although a talk about climate change, the American businessman and philanthropist ironically spoke about virtual currencies and immutable tokens, two phenomena that have become particularly popular over the past two years. So he mocked the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of NFTs owned by celebrities like Justin Bieber or Paris Hilton and sold for millions of dollars per unit, and “expensive digital images of monkeys will greatly improve the world“.

Gates’ criticism comes at a particularly sensitive time of crisis for the crypto landscape. bitcoin and Ethereum, the two best-known virtual currencies, has been crashing for weeksIt was pulled down by the failure of other tokens like Terra or Luna or the collapse of crypto trading platforms like Celsius Network. Since reaching its highest historical value in November at $69,000 per unit, Bitcoin has slumped to the current 19,800. The collapse of this market has caused other trading platforms like Coinbase to announce that they will lay off 18% of their employees.

For Gates, the idea behind cryptocurrencies or NFTs are worthless assets. “I’m used to asset classes like a farm where it’s produced or a company where products are made,” he said.