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Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future

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Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future

#131

Post by kevingadd »

dylkil wrote: post #48
exabrial wrote: post #3

Legitimizing Bitcoin more than offsets the environmental benefits of electric vehicles.

Hes legitimizing crypto in general. PoS will be proven to be more efficient in almost every way, people will gravitate towards that. Bitcoin has the network effects of being the first mover right now. Ethereum is surpassing it on many metrics, txs/day, $ volume processed per day, etc [1]. [1] https://www.blockchaincenter.net/flippening/

"PoS will be proven to be more efficient in almost every way"

We've already known PoS is more efficient for like a decade haven't we? When will it become real and actually start to supplant Bitcoin, 2030? It's a very interesting theoretical point but I don't see how it's relevant when we're talking about the environmental impact Bitcoin has been having for years while Tesla is dumping money into it.

Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future

#132

Post by londons_explore »

estaseuropano wrote: post #106
londons_explore wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energy cost of running the bitcoin network is ~constant in relation to the number of transactions processed. Cost of running the network also goes down with time as fewer bitcoins are issued as block rewards. It goes up with the price of bitcoin, as more miners spend electricity on mining. Those things have historically led to increased energy costs for the network, but in the future they could well lead to decre…

I always understood that there is only a limited number of transactions in each block. So higher transaction number = higher block number needed and therefore likely higher competition and higher transaction cost. This means that more blocks needed = more miners motivated to mine. Does the higher number of 'failed' mining not also increase with the number of miners? And proof of work increases with each block does th…

> I always understood that there is only a limited number of transactions in each block.

Correct.

> So higher transaction number = higher block number needed

No. The rate blocks are made is fixed (on average), and that limits the total transaction capacity of the whole network. That's why people are working on things like the Lightning Network as a way to add more transactions.

Other efforts to either have more blocks per hour or more transactions per block have (mostly) failed.

Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future

#133

Post by mrkstu »

Pyramus wrote: post #77

2020 has completely changed my perception of Tesla and Musk. I had this image of a benevolent genius who is sometimes misunderstood ("funding secured", "pedo guy", "Autopilot"). Came across Teslacharts' podcast [1] (now the Chartcast) and oh boy was I wrong. This is only the latest in a long series of red flags around Tesla/Musk and however it ends, it will not end well. [1] https://thechartcast.com/

Yep, he's already the richest guy on the planet and it apparently isn't enough, he has to plunder the crypto market. He is too big and influential to tweet and talk about crypto while also trading in it- he automatically will move the market with every utterance.

He should be busy enough that he can stick to his knitting on executing with SpaceX and Tesla that he doesn't have time for this kind of stuff that will get him into real trouble with the government at some point.

Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future

#134

Post by Clewza313 »

kgwgk wrote: post #100
Pyramus wrote: post #77

2020 has completely changed my perception of Tesla and Musk. I had this image of a benevolent genius who is sometimes misunderstood ("funding secured", "pedo guy", "Autopilot"). Came across Teslacharts' podcast [1] (now the Chartcast) and oh boy was I wrong. This is only the latest in a long series of red flags around Tesla/Musk and however it ends, it will not end well. [1] https://thechartcast.com/

Being Elon Musk is securities fraud.

To be fair, as Matt "Money Stuff" Levine likes to say, everything is securities fraud.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt...

Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future

#135

Post by NumberCruncher »

iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote: post #35

This is going to be one of those events that everyone points back to after the crash to show we had reached peak bubble. Like AOL buying Time Warner etc.

Or this is going to be one of those events that everyone tries to sweep under the carpet when Tesla and it's investors have to be bailed out for the first time, because it's too big to fail...

Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future

#136

Post by api »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #88

I don't understand all the Crypto hate on this site. Since when have hackers become the luddites to new ways of finance?

It's not new, and it's been through at least one hype cycle. HN likes novelty and dislikes last year's hype. It loves this year's hype though.

Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future

#137

Post by xiphias2 »

deadalus wrote: post #25

Soon, a nation might realistically buy $100 B + of bitcoin and declare it a national currency.

Lots of countries are already putting Bitcoin in their pension fund, but keeping it secret. Microstrategy's institutional interview series had some interesting insider information about it without naming the countries themselves.

Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future

#138

Post by tchalla »

Pyramus wrote: post #90
asenna wrote: post #26

People paying attention to Elon's tweets [1] [2] saw this coming from a mile away. It'll be interesting to see if and when other big companies follow suit. In my opinion it's inevitable companies will start diversifying by a bit of exposure to Bitcoin but let's see how soon that will be. [1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-cryptocurrency/tesl... [2] - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/29/bitcoin-spikes-20percen…

I believe MicroStrategy ($MSTR) was the first major company to buy north of $1B BTC and effectively peg its shareprice to BTC.

Yup, they have a dedicated page on their website explaining the decisions and other resources which are worth a read.

https://www.microstrategy.com/en/bitcoin

Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future

#139

Post by lucideer »

ben_w wrote: post #115
jC6fhrfHRLM9b3 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All EV's are worse for the environment than buying a used Petrol car.

Highly likely a used petrol car will be bought by someone even if not by you personally, so not a fair assessment. A fair assessment would be a new BEV versus a new petrol versus a new diesel versus a new hybrid.

This isn't how markets work. Your argument is basically equivalent to the old "my vote doesn't count" line, but yet still different people get elected over time.

It's not about whether you or I buy a used petrol car over a new EV; it's about whether you & I buy a used petrol car over a new EV.

Emphasis on the environmental efficiency of new products in general over the environmental impact of buying new in the first place is a topic that's well worth highlighting.

Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future

#140

Post by Tepix »

Alex3917 wrote: post #53
ikornaselur wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely it's 1.5B USD dollars worth of BTC, being roughly ~39k BTC

More like 150k. You don't pay anywhere near retail when you buy in that quantity.

Who is going to sell at a huge discount and why?
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