Bill Gates: Cryptocurrency has ‘caused deaths in a fairly direct way’

Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates blasted cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in an online question-and-answer session this week, taking fault with its ability to facilitate the anonymous buying and selling of deadly drugs including fentanyl, the synthetic opioid responsible for a rash of fatal overdoses.

Mr. Gates, 62, took issue with the emerging technology in an “Ask Me Anything” session held on the Reddit website Tuesday.

“The main feature of cryptocurrencies is their anonymity. I don’t think this is a good thing. The government’s ability to find money laundering and tax evasion and terrorist funding is a good thing. Right now, cryptocurrencies are used for buying fentanyl and other drugs, so it is a rare technology that has caused deaths in a fairly direct way,” said Mr. Gates.

“Yes — anonymous cash is used for these kinds of things,” he acknowledged, “but you have to be physically present to transfer it, which makes things like kidnapping payments more difficult,” he wrote.

As both one of the biggest names in Silicon Valley and one of the world’s wealthiest men, the Microsoft founder’s comments drew swift reactions from cryptocurrency experts critical of his claims.

Cryptocurrencies aren’t strictly anonymous, and the concerns raised by Mr. Gates aren’t exclusive to digital assets, tweeted Anthony Pompliano, a venture capitalist who accused the Microsoft founder of “fear mongering.”

“No, @BillGates. Cryptocurrencies didn’t cause deaths in a ’fairly direct way’ any more than cash did,” opined Udi Wertheimer, an Israeli Bitcoin developer and self-described troll with nearly 20,000 Twitter followers. “People using drugs are responsible for their own health. If you wish to help them, contribute to education efforts for safe drug use,” he tweeted.

“It could be argued that cryptocurrency is *saving lives* of drug users, by enabling a safe environment for acquiring high quality drugs. I don’t have data for this, but neither does Gates,” he added.

Bitcoin, the first decentralized cryptocurrency and one of the most popular, was designed at least in part to avoid banks, according to Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious author of the 2008 white paper introducing the technology.

“A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution,” the white paper said.

Cryptocurrencies have served myriad purposes in the decade since, but the technology is perhaps most infamously associated with its use on internet marketplaces where customers buy and sell contraband, including illegal drugs like fentanyl.

When the Department of Justice in 2013 seized one of those sites, Silk Road, prosecutors alleged its operators had laundered hundreds of millions of dollars by facilitating illegal drug deals involving Bitcoin, including transactions authorities linked to at least six fatal overdoses. More recently the Trump administration took credit in July for seizing and shuttering AlphaBay, a Silk Road successor believed to have catered to at least 200,000 customers around the world.

The Justice Department knew of at least 122 vendors advertising fentanyl and 238 touting heroin on AlphaBay prior to the site being seized last summer, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said previously. At least some of AlphaBay’s transactions resulted in overdose deaths, Mr. Sessions said.