{"id":7557,"date":"2018-03-02T09:53:13","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T09:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=7557"},"modified":"2018-03-02T10:57:43","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T10:57:43","slug":"bill-gates-says-crypto-currencies-cause-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/bill-gates-says-crypto-currencies-cause-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Gates says crypto-currencies cause deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3955\" src=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Bill-Gates.jpg\" alt=\"Bill Gates\" width=\"286\" height=\"176\" \/>Crypto-currencies are killing people in a \u201cfairly direct way\u201d, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has said.<br \/>\nHe was referring to the way digital currencies like Bitcoin are used to buy drugs like synthetic opioid fentanyl.<br \/>\nIn an \u201cask me anything\u201d session on news website Reddit, he said that the anonymity of digital currencies meant they were linked to terrorist funding and money laundering.<br \/>\nSome criticised him, saying he was ill-informed about the technology.<br \/>\nAsked by one user for his opinion on the technology, Mr Gates replied: \u201cThe main feature of crypto-currencies is their anonymity. I don\u2019t think this is a good thing. The government\u2019s ability to find money laundering and tax evasion and terrorist funding is a good thing.<br \/>\n\u201cRight now, crypto-currencies are used for buying fentanyl and other drugs so it is a rare technology that has caused deaths in a fairly direct way. I think the speculative wave around ICOs [initial coin offerings] and crypto-currencies is super risky for those who go long.\u201d<br \/>\nVeteran investor Warren Buffet has previously said that the speculative crypto-currency craze \u201cwill come to a bad end\u201d.<br \/>\nMr Gates has not always been so cynical about Bitcoin. In 2014, in an interview on Bloomberg TV, he said that Bitcoin \u201cwas better than currency\u201d.<br \/>\nHis less than enthusiastic response on Reddit did not go down well with all those participating in the debate, with some reproaching him for what they felt was an attempt to influence the market. Others suggested that he needed to look again at the Bitcoin white paper.<\/p>\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\r\n<script>(function(d, s, id) {\r\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\r\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\r\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\r\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_GB\/all.js#xfbml=1\";\r\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\r\n}(document, \"script\", \"facebook-jssdk\"));<\/script>\r\n <fb:comments href=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/bill-gates-says-crypto-currencies-cause-deaths\/\" font=\"arial\" num_posts=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" colorscheme=\"light\"  style=\"background:#FFFFFF;padding-top:0px;\r\npadding-right:0px;\r\npadding-bottom:0px;\r\npadding-left:0px;\r\nmargin-top:0px;\r\nmargin-right:0px;\r\nmargin-bottom:0px;\r\nmargin-left:0px;\r\n\"><\/fb:comments>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Crypto-currencies are killing people in a \u201cfairly direct way\u201d, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has said. He was referring to the way digital currencies like Bitcoin are used to buy drugs like synthetic opioid fentanyl. In an \u201cask me anything\u201d session on news website Reddit, he said that the anonymity of digital currencies meant they were &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,8],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7558,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7557\/revisions\/7558"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}