An American business magnate, Mr Bill Gates, may not be investing in Bitcoin, a leading cryptocurrency, because he is not a fan of the digital currency.

The philanthropist, who aims to work more closely with the chief executive of Amazon, Mr Jeff Bezos, to combat a climate crisis, made this declaration in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Emily Chang.

The co-founder of Microsoft said, “I’m not a fan of bitcoin, either for environmental reasons, it uses a lot of energy.”

Commenting on Mr Elon Musk investing in Bitcoin, he said, “Elon has tons of money and he’s very sophisticated. So, I don’t worry that his Bitcoin will sort of randomly go up or down.

“I do think people get bought into these manias who may not have as much money to spare, so I’m not bullish on Bitcoin, and my general thought would be that if you have less money than Elon you should probably watch out.”

Speaking earlier on the climate crisis, Mr Gates, whose book on How To Avoid A Climate Disaster went on sale recently, stated that, “The deaths will just go up over time as you get more heatwaves, forest fires and, most importantly, lose the ability to go outdoors and do farming anywhere near the equator.”

“Unlike the pandemic, it’s hard to get people to focus on catastrophes that may be decades away in enough time to avert them.

“It’s a real test of humanity to invest in advance for problems that come later,” Mr Gates said.

In his book, the billionaire businessman used the concept of a Green Premium, the difference in price between a traditional, carbon-emitting technology like a gas-powered car and its green alternative, an electric car.

“The idea of how you create a demand-side for these green products, even in the early stage where their green premium is very high, that’s something I’ve realized is one of the missing pieces,” Mr Gates said.

“We want to bring companies and governments in on that but having a strong base of philanthropic capital to get it started would be fantastic,” he added.