In his own reddit AskMeEverything page,
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/80ow6w/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/He answers about cryptocurrency stating
The main feature of crypto currencies is their anonymity. I don't think this is a good thing. The Governments 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 and crypto currencies is super risky for those who go long.
He isn't wrong in his sense, if the cryptocurrency is to have a future, they should be able to create an environment of trust between themselves and the authorities.
The problem in crypto is lack of trust. Only few projects and platform are established well and can be a good start for future modernization. But as it goes by, many projects keep launching and some of them used as scam get away. This is a bad image for the crypto. I guess, the only solution is to implement centralization on some part of crypto to avoid some incident such as this mentioned by Bill Gates