Hi Lucinda,
OF course Gates needs to "tread lightly through the rice patties." He needs to walk a line that doesn't totally Did the banking community where crypto, as a gamechanger, is going to cut into banks fee revenues like no other market catalyst in over a century.
What Gates SHOULD be remarking on, however, is how crypto is vastly changing the cultures of places like Subsaharan Africa and rural IndoAsia where communities are underserved by financial institutions, as well as giving asset security to places like Iran and Venezuela. In these countries, just as one example, the instability of governments has driven consumers to bail on the confidence of their own currency in favor of peer community supported cryptocurrency mechanisms.
The transformation we are witnessing is NOT about bitcoin, per se, but about the utility found in a host of cryptocommerce mechanisms that are poplulated and trusted in the countries they are used.
-Todd