As crypto investors watched their market crash this week, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, likened non-fungible tokens (NFT) to the "greater fool theory."

At the TechCrunch conference, Gates answered a question about cryptocurrencies and made fun of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of NFTs built on the Ethereum blockchain. The collection consists of cartoon monkey profile photos generated by an algorithm. They are known to sell for several hundred thousand dollars.

However, after the crash of the cryptocurrency, according to NFT Price Floor data, the lowest price of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT fell below $100,000 for the first time since August 2021.

Gates sarcastically said that expensive digital images of monkeys would significantly improve the world. He also added that he prefers more traditional types of investments, including farmland or stocks.

But Gates is neither short nor long in crypto. He has nothing to do with it at all. He is used to asset classes that produce something.

Since the cryptocurrency crash this week, Bitcoin is down nearly 70% from its November all-time high of $69,000.

Ethereum is down 77% from its November all-time high of $4,878.

Crypto's total market capitalization has fallen to $942 billion after rising above $3 trillion in November.