I wish Elon would know more about NANO if he truly cares about the environment and wanting to push forward a realistic digital money
Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future
361–370 of 1001 posts
Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future
#3622020 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/
Care to elaborate more? You mention the podcast, but not why it has made you think of it as a set of red flags.
Yes sure, I should have elaborated more. From the top of my head:
* Tesla's net profit doesn't come from selling cars to consumers but from selling tax credits to other companies [1].
* Tesla is quite aggressive and creative in its non-GAAP accounting, famously 20% of quarterly profits are accounts receivable.
* Elon is not a founder of Tesla, but sued the founders to be able to call himself one.
* No competitor working on autonomous driving thinks that Tesla will get there, yet Elon promises that robotaxis are just around the corner for several years now.
* Elon was one of the first prominent Covid deniers, then had to turn around and promised to deliver ventilators, none of which were delivered.
* When customers came in for warranty repairs, Tesla had them sign an NDA that the repair was goodwill, therefore not having to report numbers on warranty repairs to NHTSA and being able to use different accounting methods.
* During factory visits with journalists, no worker is allowed to speak with visitors or vice versa.
* Quality assurance in the Fremont factory is sub-par, assembly is done in a tent outside of the factory, even Elon himself says don't buy cars during end of quarter production ramps.
* Tesla is facing several hundred litigation lawsuits each year.
* Tesla is the company with the most OSHA violations in the US, and, according to whistleblowers, in emergency situations workers are sent back to work or taxis are called instead of ambulances so that no accidents have to be reported.
* As the CEO of a billion dollar company, Elon personally likes to "take revenge" on whistle-blowers, journalists and critics.
This is just from the top of my head, there are a lot more red flags here (each one being a massive rabbit hole).
For the record, I think EVs are a net win, Tesla/Musk have done a great job promoting EVs, Tesla cars do offer a great experience, I have no stock position on TSLA etc.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/31/investing/tesla-profitabi...
/Edit plainsite has a good report here: https://www.plainsite.org/realitycheck/tsla.pdf
Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future
#363Cryptocurrency is a blind spot where Hacker News’ normal optimism towards innovation has disappointed for a decade. May this thread be one we can reference years later as another example of “our collective opinions can be very wrong about technologies that were transformative in hindsight.” Innovators, follow regulations and go for it. Don’t let the HN crowd get you down. Few of these commenters have ever been unbank…
What exactly is the bull case for bitcoin? I have not seen it clearly explained. I’ve got an open mind. In more specific terms you mentioned the unbanked. How does crypto solve the problems that leave them unbanked?
Cryptocurrency allows users to send, receive, or immigrate with money - without an inbuilt requirement to open accounts or disclose private information to third parties.
Gold cannot be memorized nor can its total amount in existence, in the universe, be known. It does, however, work without electricity.
Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future
#364Bitcoin is a mystery to me. Somehow it's hailed as revolutionising the economy, by replacing currency with a worse kind of currency. It feels like this is where all the "how to get rich quick" book writers and other hustle bros went and created one giant financial pyramid, which works in quite simple way: - buy bitcoin - tell everyone around how revolutionary it is, so they buy it and what you holding increases in va…
> You know what would be revolutionary? Getting rid of currency altogether.
What would be the point, going back to trading?
You are missing the point, if you keep a good scarce versus another abundant, overtime the scarce good will gain value. It's basic economics. Bitcoin is revolutionary because of the blockchain, but it's not its fault that it's gaining value, it's people over-hyping it every 4 years due to the halvening plus indiscriminate fiat money printing policy.
Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
What exactly is the bull case for bitcoin? I have not seen it clearly explained. I’ve got an open mind. In more specific terms you mentioned the unbanked. How does crypto solve the problems that leave them unbanked?
Unrest in every country, legal systems non existent or not robust enough to solve national or international disputes but local warlords still need to trade and cooperate. Then obviously Bitcoin would be extremely valuable and useful.
Just the opposite. Bitcoin seems to depend upon a stable computing network and legal authorities who can punish those who hack bitcoin.
If such networks collapsed how could most people keep bitcoin secure? Or run the computing power to power the network?
With gold, money and other valuables you can carry them with you and hide them.
Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bitcoin has revolutionized the black market economy.
Bitcoin has definitely done that but more importantly it has revolutionized the Shadow Economy - which is a lot larger than most people realize.
The USD remains the choice of the cartels and professional money launderers.
After all, pro crooks do not want to leave an eternal trace of their transactions on a public ledger on the internet.
Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future
#367Bitcoin is a mystery to me. Somehow it's hailed as revolutionising the economy, by replacing currency with a worse kind of currency. It feels like this is where all the "how to get rich quick" book writers and other hustle bros went and created one giant financial pyramid, which works in quite simple way: - buy bitcoin - tell everyone around how revolutionary it is, so they buy it and what you holding increases in va…
I'm still forming an opinion on cryptocurrency.
You mention that decentralization is a very important step that we should try to take as a society. If that's the case, then why isn't Bitcoin (or PeerCoin etc etc) a step function revolution?
Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fiat currency is fundamentally more speculative IMO because the value is more based on government trust that something not man-made.
That's not really what "speculative" means in this context. Fiat currency isn't speculative because companies hold it for the purpose of using it. No matter what dollars are based on, Tesla has to hold some in order to pay the bills. "Speculative" means that Tesla has no current plans to actually use their Bitcoin holdings; the only purpose of buying them was to bet that they'll go up.
> the only purpose of buying them was to bet that they'll go up.
Which seems a good bet, when the government is increasing the fiat money supply by 40% per year [1].
[1] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4392716-in-october-money-su...
Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future
#369Bitcoin is a mystery to me. Somehow it's hailed as revolutionising the economy, by replacing currency with a worse kind of currency. It feels like this is where all the "how to get rich quick" book writers and other hustle bros went and created one giant financial pyramid, which works in quite simple way: - buy bitcoin - tell everyone around how revolutionary it is, so they buy it and what you holding increases in va…
«they buy it and what you holding increases in value, then tell them to do the same.»
Literally the same happens to any investment: tell people to buy stock X, time share Y, precious metal Z, that it's awesome, so it gains value, etc
The fact is Bitcoin/crypto is revolutionary. For example it allows merchants to cut down on fraud, since a payment received in BTC is irreversible, so chargeback fraud is impossible. It enables instantaneous B2B international payments. It allows escaping your country inflationary currency. It's censorship-resistant. It empowers the unbanked & underbanked.
Re: Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future
#370Here is the key paragraph from todays 10k. It also mentions gold related assets. ( https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459021... ): "In January 2021, we updated our investment policy to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity. As part of the policy, which was duly approved by the Audit Commit…
You’ll notice that even if they accept Bitcoin as payment, they’ll never price anything in Bitcoin. Nobody does that. They always price it in dollars and accept Bitcoin at the market rate. When people start pricing things I’m Bitcoin without doing some daily calculation, that’s when you know it’s serious.
You will never be able to price anything in Bitcoin, ever. It's volatile because deflationary currencies are inherently volatile.
The future of finance is in some future crypto that provides for economic-growth-based inflation/deflation of the money supply. The Fed does this manually, and that's what keeps USD more-or-less stable.