Recently, Coinbase has revealed that they will comply with a request from the IRS to send information about its customers to help the company investigate taxes related to cryptocurrency purchases. Bill Gates has now chimed in on the growing digital coin craze that is sweeping the globe, taking to Reddit's ask me anything to warn the general public about the potentially deadly aspects of this phenomenon.
Responding to a user question, Gates admits how these currencies and the technologies used to disseminate them are causing deaths in a "fairly direct way."
Gates' heated criticism of Bitcoin and other companies are based on a troubling "anonymity" explaining how "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. I think the speculative wave around ICOs and cryptocurrencies is super risky for those who go long."
The Microsoft genius' sentiments follow a recent report indicating how robbers are resorting to physical violence in order to obtain Bitcoin. A recent attack in Thailand details a Russian tourist who has seized and berated until he transferred over $100,000 USD in Bitcoin to his capturers. Similarly, a man in the United States was also detained by a confident, and was only released after he paid almost $2 million USD in Ether.
