"Keep your transactions hidden and secure! Evade taxes! Buy or sell anything completely anonymously! Crypto!" He is literally advertising it OMEGALUL

UnrealGaming:

"Keep your transactions hidden and secure! Evade taxes! Buy or sell anything completely anonymously! Crypto!" He is literally advertising it OMEGALUL

Yeah and if he won't talk about it, those things will magically fade in fairy world.....

I wonder who paid him to say that. Also, I wonder if he never tried to avoid taxes, or succeeded in doing so, or the company he was more or less governing for years. As they say, preaching water and drinking wine, most likely.

This is hilarious on so many levels... The terrorism... The very government he speaks about has been the biggest terrorist under the Sun for quite some time. Tax evasion. Bill should know, because his trademark company, Microsoft, is an expert in this field. Speculative financial practices. Look no further than the traditional financial institutions. Who the fuk brought down the economy in 2008? Crypto? yeah right.../s How about another sh1ty financial practice, high-frequency trading? Oh but HTT is good, because it brings sh1tload of money for Microsoft. Using crypto to buy drugs. How the fuk did the druggies and the drug lords manage be4 crypto? MMmmmaybe using ordinary mmmmoney? Is money bad? Ban money! You can buy million things with crypto. But because you can buy one bad thing, that means crypto is BAD! WTF is wrong with this guy. I expect this kind of silliness from the bottom feeders, not from Bill effin gates.

Noisiv:

This is hilarious on so many levels... The terrorism... The very government he speaks about has been the biggest terrorist under the Sun for quite some time. Tax evasion. Bill should know, because his trademark company, Microsoft, is an expert in this field. Speculative financial practices. Look no further than the traditional financial institutions. Who the fuk brought down the economy in 2008? Crypto? yeah right.../s How about another sh1ty financial practice, high-frequency trading? Oh but HTT is good, because it brings sh1tload of money for Microsoft. Using crypto to buy drugs. How the fuk did the druggies and the drug lords manage be4 crypto? MMmmmaybe using ordinary mmmmoney? Is money bad? Ban money! You can buy million things with crypto. But because you can buy one bad thing, that means crypto is BAD! WTF is wrong with this guy. I expect this kind of silliness from the bottom feeders, not from Bill effin gates.

He probably received a few hundred coins for that, that's why 😀

Coming from a man, whose company is cherishing people. . .

Pretty sure that Windows pretty much directly facilitates illegal activities by providing a front end to carry out these tasks. Perhaps the internet is also bad thing.

RzrTrek:

If it isn't the government always trying to scare people away from what they can't control, regulate or tax, then it's big business.

And then there's people that just... chose to not do what everybody else does and not join the miners. 🙂

sverek:

You guys missing the point that he actually got caught with tax evasion. Dude got his ass handed back to him. So if there higher risk to get caught using cash, maybe it worth trying bitcoins. Just saying. Bill did many mistakes in past, hopefully he learned from it and actually saying something worth listening to. He is no longer working in M$ and has less to do with it. He is trying to make this world a better place. See his efforts and donations. And you can't deny a fact that bitcoin makes shady deals way easier with less risk. Love it, hate it, this is what it is. Anyway, I have nothing against bitcoins. But it is a tool that provides more possibilities. Bill mentioned dark side of it.

Na not really missing, hence my hinting at how he and m$ do business for decades now in my first post in the thread. But I tend to agree with you on the rest, although nobody knows for sure to what the possibilities would be used. Criminals always are first to use such possibilities like using blockchain and cryptos, but the fun part is: "traditional" finance is not really any more or less legal or trustworthy. That's why you don't throw your money at the first guy offering you the same interest rates than with cryptos... with normal investments you just beg to be exploited, already waiting for get scammed.

sverek:

You guys missing the point that he actually got caught with tax evasion. Dude got his ass handed back to him. So if there higher risk to get caught using cash, maybe it worth trying bitcoins. Just saying. Bill did many mistakes in past, hopefully he learned from it and actually saying something worth listening to. He is no longer working in M$ and has less to do with it. He is trying to make this world a better place. See his efforts and donations. And you can't deny a fact that bitcoin makes shady deals way easier with less risk. Love it, hate it, this is what it is. Anyway, I have nothing against bitcoins. But it is a tool that provides more possibilities. Bill mentioned dark side of it.

What Bill said was completely uninteresting, bland, something everyone already knows and certainly not a complete picture of crypto. Which is very disappointing considering he's a programmer and a tech guy himself. So his comments end up sounding like they're meant for complete normies that don't know anything about anything, to keep them away from crypto. Instead of giving a more honest well rounded view, with maybe some actual insight.

one could say that about of a lot of legal things. but I don't think he got paid to say that, if he started to burn all his money now the fire would last years. I guess any propaganda against mining is not a bad thing for someone who wants a vga at a sane price.

There is probably more crime comited behind the "art sales" money laundry than with cripto

Picolete:

There is probably more crime comited behind the "art sales" money laundry than with cripto

https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/ Bottom line: Total Market Cap: $452 597 027 789 That's 452 trillion USD. I don't think that art sales sum up to that kind of money, nowhere near. Even if you only take the top 10 cryptos, that's still almost 370 trillion USD.

fantaskarsef:

https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/ Bottom line: Total Market Cap: $452 597 027 789 That's 452 trillion USD. I don't think that art sales sum up to that kind of money, nowhere near. Even if you only take the top 10 cryptos, that's still almost 370 trillion USD.

Erm... Please read your number again.

anthos:

Erm... Please read your number again.

Yes you are right, got it wrong there. It's billions of $. Though I'm still not sure that arts sales adds up to 450 billion dollars per year. Or 370.

sverek:

You guys missing the point that he actually got caught with tax evasion. Dude got his ass handed back to him. So if there higher risk to get caught using cash, maybe it worth trying bitcoins. Just saying. Bill did many mistakes in past, hopefully he learned from it and actually saying something worth listening to. He is no longer working in M$ and has less to do with it. He is trying to make this world a better place. See his efforts and donations. And you can't deny a fact that bitcoin makes shady deals way easier with less risk. Love it, hate it, this is what it is. Anyway, I have nothing against bitcoins. But it is a tool that provides more possibilities. Bill mentioned dark side of it.

Can't agree with Gates here...his comment is actually rather ridiculous, seeing as how cash is a million times more anonymous, at least, because there is so much more anonymous cash flowing daily than the coin exchanges, and when you use cash, "who you are" is rather unimportant to the process. 😀 In the US, all transactions in excess of $10k in cash must be reported to the government (by your bank, etc.)--but no one knows how many such transactions take place daily that are *not* reported to the government...! The illegal drug trade, for instance, runs almost entirely on cash because it is untraceable. (So much more cash than coin moves daily that the two are not even comparable.) If I want to remain anonymous I'd use cash--not Bitcoin, etc. That said... (Sometimes I really believe Gates is going senile on us these days.) Nope, sorry, but Gates was never even accused, much less charged, with tax evasion by any US legal authority, ...;) Not even close. Microsoft got run through the US government wringer a couple of decades back for being a "monopoly," (a charge I always believed was entirely bogus) and was in fact found to have been a "legal monopoly," actually, at the end of the road. [legal monopoly = company that corners the market for its products without having broken any laws to get there--which is really what makes the whole "monopoly" legal scene bogus, imo--but Microsoft never cornered the market on computer OSes. If it had, Apple would have been out of business decades ago, and nobody would use Linux, etc.] US government (my government) did the same thing to Apple not too long ago. Basically, if a tech company becomes too successful in the US the government (eg, jealous people inside the government, for example people in Congress, to be clear about it) gets nervous and wants to bring them down a few pegs--let them know who's boss--that kind of thing. Or else they want to lynch Microsoft because it grabbed headlines and gave them a lot of free publicity. Seems to be a trend as the EU is doing that, too. Also, cash-strapped governments routinely bring up false "monopoly" charges against wealthy tech companies to subsidize their mostly wasteful spending habits, imo--pay their crooked government lawyers huge commissions--that are rarely publicized--etc. AFAIK and IIRC, there were no criminal charges of any kind filed against either Microsoft or Gates, personally. Classic case of Fake News. BTW, In the US, people tried and convicted of tax evasion do jail time--all of them. (It's how they nailed Al Capone, for instance.) Gates has never even spent the night in a jail cell as far as I know. Best Advice: don't believe everything you read on the Internet--especially when it pertains to silly political articles that make lots of accusations but don't prove anything they allege [like the so-called 'tax-evasion' article on Gates I just Binged up]--pure garbage. I am mortified to see today that some people evidently think that wild and unsubstantiated accusations (sans proof of any kind) lodged against against people via the Internet = facts. Far from it. Caveat Emptor. Be as picky about the political "news" you see on the Internet as you are about the products you buy for your box at a home.

I'm not a fan of Bill Gates; I feel he's a bad person, and only using his money for stuff like malaria research to help cover up his wrongdoings. However... I do think he has valid points here.

Noisiv:

The terrorism... The very government he speaks about has been the biggest terrorist under the Sun for quite some time.

If you pay attention to the trends and demographics of various cryptocurrencies, you'll find countries like South Africa, Slovenia, Kosovo, and Nigeria, China, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, Australia, and Singapore are more invested in them than "the very country" you speak of. Many of these countries are notorious for the involvement of the activities he was speaking of.

Tax evasion. Bill should know, because his trademark company, Microsoft, is an expert in this field.

Very true. He may be a hypocrite, but his point remains valid.

Using crypto to buy drugs. How the fuk did the druggies and the drug lords manage be4 crypto? MMmmmaybe using ordinary mmmmoney? Is money bad? Ban money! You can buy million things with crypto. But because you can buy one bad thing, that means crypto is BAD!

What a ridiculous statement and misinterpretation of what he was getting at. Cryptocurrencies make doing criminal activities much easier - Bill is not wrong about that. Of course in the past criminals would work with the cash they've got - what's the point of risking imprisonment (or worse) if there's nothing of value to gain? Drug lords, smugglers, traffickers, counterfeiters, etc are running a business. Using government money makes it easier to find them. But, if they can rake in all this cash using a currency untrackable by a government, they suddenly just got a lot more powerful.

I don't care about people , f*ck the people (and yes i actually have f*cked other people) think about GPU's /s

schmidtbag:

"The" government? He said "governments", and if you pay attention to the trends and demographics of various cryptocurrencies, you'll find countries like South Africa, Slovenia, Kosovo, and Nigeria, China, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, Australia, and Singapore are more invested in them than "the very country" you speak of. Many of these countries are notorious for the involvement of the activities he was speaking of.

Government's (possession) not Governments (plural). Which is pretty clear when you actually read the sentence. Or look at the original article, which isn't missing the '. As it's also pretty clear that Noisiv never said anything about U.S. government using crypto. So, that comparison there has literally nothing to do with what Noisiv was saying. Now sure, pointing to a problem A, doesn't really make the problem B disappear. But it's not a bad idea to point out the hypocrisy of Bill saying the government should be able to track everything, while not acknowledging that the same government does horrible things and it itself can't really be trusted.

UnrealGaming:

Government's (possession) not Governments (plural). Which is pretty clear when you actually read the sentence. Or look at the original article, which isn't missing the '.

I don't understand your point... I made it abundantly clear that I was referring to a multitude of governments. In fact, I made it my point that Gates spoke of many governments. Where did I suggest otherwise?

As it's also pretty clear that Noisiv never said anything about U.S. government using crypto. So, that comparison there has literally nothing to do with what Noisiv was saying.

You're right - literally none of that has anything to do with Noisiv was saying, or myself for that matter. Where exactly did I say, imply, or even hint any of that? Put it in this perspective: Noisiv: I prefer vanilla over chocolate Me: I prefer chocolate over vanilla You: Noisiv didn't say anything about strawberry, he said he likes vanilla. How did strawberry get involved? Nowhere was strawberry mentioned; nowhere did I say the US government was using crypto, and I never suggested Noisiv said that, either.

Now sure, pointing to a problem A, doesn't really make the problem B disappear. But it's not a bad idea to point out the hypocrisy of Bill saying the government should be able to track everything, while not acknowledging that the same government does horrible things and it itself can't really be trusted.

That doesn't matter - whatever the US does is completely irrelevant to Gates' point: cryptocurrencies are an easy source of value for criminals. That has nothing to do with any shady, illegal, or immoral activities of the US.

fantaskarsef:

Yes you are right, got it wrong there. It's billions of $. Though I'm still not sure that arts sales adds up to 450 billion dollars per year. Or 370.

You could probably immediately drop three numbers out of it if people really started selling. Those billions are nothing but speculation backed by beliefs. There's nothing at all behind the crypto currencies. There's not even a person's face there despite it being such a new invention, let alone countries or corporations. It could all disappear in a single night and life would go on everywhere like it always did, apart from some individual people who might have lost a little or a lot.