He was referring to the way digital currencies like Bitcoin are used to buy drugs like synthetic opioid fentanyl.

In an “ask me anything” session on news website Reddit, he said that the anonymity of digital currencies meant they were linked to terrorist funding and money laundering.

Some criticised him, saying he was ill-informed about the technology.

Asked by one user for his opinion on the technology, Mr Gates replied: “The main feature of crypto-currencies 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, 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.”

Veteran investor Warren Buffet has previously said that the speculative crypto-currency craze “will come to a bad end”.

Mr Gates has not always been so cynical about Bitcoin. In 2014, in an interview on Bloomberg TV, he said that Bitcoin “was better than currency”.

His 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.

Charitable donations

In the wide-ranging Reddit chat, Mr Gates told the audience that his top three goals were “reducing both childhood death and malnutrition and ending polio”.

Mr Gates is co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which spends billions each year on education and health projects.

The foundation has also sponsored the development of blockchain – the technology that underpins crypto-currenices – for merchants in Kenya.

Microsoft is also looking to integrate blockchain-based technology for verifying digital identity.

The rise in value of crypto-currency has prompted governments around the world to look more closely at its impact on economies and citizens.

While the technology underlying it is often praised, there are concerns about how it could disrupt the economy as well as its links to cyber-crime and money laundering.

The UK’s Treasury Committee is currently investigating the impact of such currencies.

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Source: BBC

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The investment is not part of Gates’ philanthropic Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and will be followed with another $50 million in a number of start-up ventures working in Alzheimer’s research, Gates said.

With rapidly rising numbers of people suffering from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, the disease is taking a growing emotional and financial toll as people live longer, Gates told Reuters in an interview.

“It’s a huge problem, a growing problem, and the scale of the tragedy – even for the people who stay alive – is very high,” he said.

Despite decades of scientific research, there is no treatment that can slow the progression of Alzheimer‘s. Current drugs can do no more than ease some of the symptoms.

Gates said, however, that with focused and well-funded innovation, he’s “optimistic” treatments can be found, even if they might be more than a decade away.

”It’ll take probably 10 years before new theories are tried enough times to give them a high chance of success. So it’s very hard to hazard a guess (when an effective drug might be developed).

“I hope that in the next 10 years that we have some powerful drugs, but it’s possible that won’t be achieved.”
Dementia, of which Alzheimer’s is the most common form, affects close to 50 million people worldwide and is expected to affect more than 131 million by 2050, according to the non-profit campaign group Alzheimer’s Disease International.

The DDF, which was launched in 2015 and involves drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Biogen Idec as well as the UK government, has already invested in at least nine start-up companies investigating potential ways to stop or reverse the biological processes that lead to dementia.

Gates told Reuters the additional $50 million would be put into start-ups working on some “less mainstream” approaches to the disease, but said he had not yet identified these companies.

The philanthropist, whose usual focus is on infectious diseases in poorer countries, said Alzheimer’s disease caught his interest partly for personal reasons, and partly because it has so far proved such a tough nut to crack.
“I know how awful it is to watch people you love struggle as the disease robs them of their mental capacity… It feels a lot like you’re experiencing a gradual death of the person that you knew,” he said in a blog post about the dementia investments.

He added: “Some of the men in my family have suffered from Alzheimer‘s, but I wouldn’t say that’s the sole reason” (for this investment).

Through talking to experts in the field over the past year, Gates said he had identified five areas of need: Understanding better how Alzheimer’s unfolds, detecting and diagnosing it earlier, pursuing multiple approaches to trying to halt the disease, making it easier for people to take part in clinical trials of potential new medicines, and using data better.

“My background at Microsoft and my (Gates) Foundation background say to me that a data-driven contribution might be an area where I can help add some value,” he said.

Alongside the $50 million investment in DDF and the additional $50 million planned for start-ups, Gates said he would like to award a grant to build a global dementia data platform. This would make it easier for researchers to look for patterns and identify new pathways for treatment, he said.

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Source: Huffington Post

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In an interview, the billionaire said aid was now being spent “in a smarter way” in some parts of the world.

“Some countries have made good progress in the reduction of childhood deaths and reduction in poverty, with Tanzania being a good example,” said Gates, during a visit to the east African country.

“I see a chance for the eradication of malaria and HIV/AIDS, but that’s gonna take a lot of science and a lot of investment.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent billions of dollars on aid projects worldwide in recent years, much of it in Africa.

Gates said he was hopeful that the U.S. Congress would continue to resist President Donald Trump’s plans to make deep cuts to development aid.

A Republican-led Senate panel last month rejected proposed reductions.

“Trump did propose a big aid cut, but Congress … pushed back on those proposals. It’s clear they may not cut that much aid,” he said.

The U.S. government pledged in May to give Tanzania a $526m aid package this year through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program.

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Source: Reuters

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Well, only if we’re measuring bank accounts. Bill Gates joined Instagram on Saturday, making Jeff Bezos not only the second richest person in the world but also on the popular photo sharing platform.

Gates, whose handle is thisisbillgates, joined IG from Tanzania. He shared a couple of pictures, presumably of him doing work on behalf of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Bezos recently enjoyed a few hours as the richest man in the world, but Gates quickly regained the title after a small market fluctuation restored what’s become the natural order.

Our recent poll showed Gates was overwhelmingly more popular with TNW readers than Bezos:

Let’s see how long it takes Bill to go from 12.3K followers (at the time of posting) to surpassing Jeff, who currently has 30K after joining three weeks ago.

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Souce: The next web

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Bezos briefly beat out Bill Gates, the 61-year-old co-founder of Microsoft Corp, who has held the top spot since May 2013, with $90 billion.

But Bezos quickly slipped to second best when Amazon reported its second quarter earnings showing a profit of $197 million on strong sales of $38 billion.

The dip in profit is a 77 per cent drop from $857 million this time last year, and it’s mainly due to Amazon’s aggressive investments in its own business.

Around 9.30am on Thursday, shares of Amazon.com jumped 1.8 per cent to $1,071.31 in New York, pushing Bezos’ personal wealth to over $91 billion.

Bloomberg noted that if shares of Amazon.com maintained to the end of trading at 4.00pm, Bezos, 53, would surpass Gates on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

And Bezos did, but only for a short time.

But the time of market close on Thursday, Bezos was already back in second place with $88.5 billion, but stronger earnings would have brought him back to the top by Friday, according to The Verge.

Amazon was projected to post a 22 per cent jump in its quarterly revenue, rising to an estimated $37.2 billion based on the average assessment of 34 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, with earnings per share of $1.42.

Amazon’s diverse portfolio, which includes apparel and groceries, is helping boost its market projections, but investors are keeping an eye out for an increase in the company’s subscription-based services.

The internet retailer sells a $99 -a-year Amazon Prime service, which offers delivery discounts and video and music streaming.

Michael Pachter, a Wedbush Securities Inc analyst, told Bloomberg that ‘Anyone who joins Prime… shops in retail stores 10 per cent less, and that number will keep accelerating as Amazon adds more inventory.’

‘Amazon Prime is the reason why so much physical retail is going away,’ Pachter added, referring to traditional brick-and-mortar businesses.

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Source: Daily Mail

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Mr Kushner has volunteered to speak to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the White House said.

It is examining Russia’s alleged interference in last year’s election.

The US intelligence community believes alleged Russian hacking during the presidential election was done to help Mr Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.

Russia denied the allegations and President Trump has branded the story “fake news”.

There are two congressional investigations into the issue, plus an FBI one.

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers have been calling for Republican Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to withdraw himself from all further investigations into possible links between the Trump team and Russia.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said he had discredited himself by secretly visiting the White House to review intelligence documents, before announcing he had information that Mr Trump and his advisers may have been subjected to incidental surveillance during the election.

Mr Nunes’ spokesman said he had visited the White House grounds as it was “a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source”.

However, Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, said the White House visit, which was kept from other committee members, showed Mr Nunes was too close to the Trump administration to “lead a credible investigation”.

The Senate committee wants to question Mr Kushner about two meetings he allegedly arranged with senior Russians, officials told the New York Times.

But staff of Mr Kushner, who was a senior adviser to Mr Trump during the election campaign, have said that so far his offer to be questioned has not been answered.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Mr Kushner has not invoked executive privilege, and will testify because his job with the campaign was to be a “conduit to leaders”.

“That was his role and he wants to makes sure that he’s very clear about the role that he played, who he talked to, and that’s it,” Mr Spicer said on Monday.

The first was with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak at Trump Tower in New York in December. The second was with the head of Russia’s state-owned development bank.

White House staff told the New York Times nothing significant was discussed and members of the president-elect’s team routinely met Russians and other foreign delegations.

Meanwhile, Mr Kushner has been picked to lead a new White House team that aims to overhaul government bureaucracy.

It will have sweeping powers to reform procedures, with technology and data a key area and the help of Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft founder Bill Gates reportedly enlisted.

Mr Kushner, 36, told the newspaper the “government should be run like a great American company”.

He is a property investor and media executive who is married to Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka.

He already advises the president on foreign relations, and is said to have been influential in helping President Trump choose staff for his campaign and in government.

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Source: BBC

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