“Bitcoin sucks” is a blunt paraphrase, not a verified Bill Gates quote. Gates has criticized Bitcoin’s energy use, payment design, and practical value—but his emphasis has shifted over time. In a 2021 WIRED interview, he said electricity was not the center of his criticism: he preferred digital payments that identify the sender and can be reversed when a transaction is mistaken, and questioned whether Bitcoin had delivered comparable benefits for low-cost remittances.
What did Bill Gates say about Bitcoin?
Gates’s comments are best understood as evolving criticism, not one fixed verdict. In a 2015 Reddit AMA, he called Bitcoin “an exciting new technology.” By 2018, he was emphasizing cryptocurrency’s anonymity and speculative risks. In 2021, he discussed Bitcoin’s energy use but said his main concern was its payment design and utility. In 2022, he criticized crypto and NFTs more broadly as speculative assets.
Why did Gates prefer other digital payment designs?
In his 2021 WIRED interview, Gates said Bitcoin seemed like “a step backward” for the climate because it was “such a huge energy consumer.” But he immediately qualified the point: “My criticisms of Bitcoin are not really centered on its ridiculous use of electricity.” He focused instead on what he considered useful features in a digital payment system.
Identifiable transactions
Gates favored payments that are attributed to the people making them. In a 2018 Reddit AMA response reproduced by Axios, he argued that government authorities’ ability to find money laundering, tax evasion, and terrorist financing was beneficial. This was Gates’s stated concern about anonymity, not a measurement of how much cryptocurrency is used for criminal activity.
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Reversibility and volatility
In his 2015 AMA, Gates said the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation did not use Bitcoin for its digital-currency work because volatility could harm poor users and mistaken payments needed to be reversible. He also noted that Bitcoin-related approaches could make financial transactions cheaper. The AMA transcript is hosted by AMA Transcripts, rather than published as an official Gates document. Read the transcript.
Remittances and practical utility
Gates pointed to low-cost remittances as a practical benchmark, mentioning digital payment work in countries including Kenya. His assessment was that Bitcoin had not delivered comparable utility. That is his view of Bitcoin’s performance against those use cases, not an independent comparison of current payment services.
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How did Gates’s view change over time?
| Date and source | What Gates said | Context |
|---|---|---|
| January 2015, Reddit AMA transcript | Called Bitcoin “an exciting new technology”; raised volatility and mistaken-payment concerns. | He discussed why the foundation did not use Bitcoin for its digital-currency work while acknowledging the potential to reduce transaction costs. |
| February 2018, Reddit AMA response reported by Axios and the World Economic Forum | Objected to cryptocurrency anonymity and cited risks involving illicit activity and speculation. | These were Gates’s concerns, not independently verified findings about the scale of criminal use. |
| March 2021, WIRED interview | Raised energy consumption, then said his main criticism was not electricity. | He emphasized payment attribution, reversibility, and practical value such as low-cost remittances. |
| June 2022, TechCrunch talk reported by Axios | Described crypto and NFTs as “100% based on the greater fool theory.” | His remarks addressed crypto and NFTs broadly, not Bitcoin alone; he contrasted them with investments in productive assets. |
The 2018 discussion is reported by Axios and the World Economic Forum. Axios reported the 2022 remarks in its account of Gates’s TechCrunch talk.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What these comments do—and do not—establish
Gates’s remarks explain why he has been skeptical of Bitcoin: he has questioned its energy use, the design of anonymous and irreversible payments, and whether it provides practical benefits he values. The cited interviews and reports document his opinions; they do not independently establish current Bitcoin energy consumption, transaction costs, privacy properties, or remittance performance. They also do not provide a current technical comparison between Bitcoin and other payment systems.
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