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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

#511

Post by dannyw »

EtienneK wrote: post #380

I love the idea of Bitcoin. But, as someone who's been working in banking for more than a decade - what problem does Bitcoin solve? Serious question; 'cause I'm failing to come up with a good answer. Edit: The closest I've come to answering this: To me Bitcoin is more a decentralized international payment protocol (such as SWIFT); not a store of value / currency. But I rarely see it being pitched in that way.

Bitcoin is a digital hard asset, that is a hedge against inflation. We've seen insane money printing over the past year thanks to COVID, and while we can debate on the merits of it, what is indisputable is that fiat money can be arbitrarily debased at will.

Bitcoin is a hedge against this.,

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

#512

Post by colinmorelli »

bushbaba wrote: post #505
colinmorelli wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the history of Bitcoin also exposed issues with not having a central bank? Theft that can't be reversed, digital wallets that can't be unlocked, value that can't be insured, etc. Currency fundamentally requires trust - at the very least it requires trust that the asset you are receiving is roughly equivalent in worth to the asset you're giving as part of the transaction. In the cas…

> it requires trust that the asset you are receiving is roughly equivalent in worth to the asset you're giving Checkout uniswap. Which is a decentralized exchange which the smart contract ensuring you get X asset for Y btc.

Sure, but again, this is only part of the problem. I also need to have confidence that I can do something with the BTC before its value wildly fluctuates. And either way, again, it still requires trust (in this case, trust in uniswap and its network).

My point is not to say that the problem can't be solved on a technical level. It's that it still requires trust. That problem doesn't get eliminated, it simply moves.

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

#513

Post by tibbon »

koheripbal wrote: post #370
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

FWIW, there's plenty of volatile fiat currencies that things are priced in today. Stability has never been required for pricing.

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

#514

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

sygma wrote: post #435
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #381

Oh noes, if this starts a trend, becomes widespread, and businesses start hoarding crypto tokens instead of investing in building stuff, it could cause a great depression pretty much the same way gold hoarding caused the economy to collapse in 1929. When people, businesses and banks start hording tokens instead of investing in building and maintaining the production capacity of consumables, the ratio of value of toke…

> businesses start hoarding crypto tokens instead of investing in building stuff Share buybacks. Tech businesses are buying their own shares to pump the stock price (and their options' value) rather than investing in building stuff.

Share buybacks end up reinvested. This is not the same.

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

#515

Post by bl557 »

thehappypm wrote: post #424

I am embarrassed by the industry. How many of our generation's best and brightest minds are doing crypto and day trading? Imagine if these minds were focused on societal problems -- energy, health, food. I know multiple Harvard CS graduates who went right into the crypto space. What a waste.

Watch this video before you jump to any conclusions - https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1357757736394444800

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

#516

Post by MrMan »

bob33212 wrote: post #311
andysinclair wrote: post #238

Here 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…

All global companies with cash reserves "Maximize returns on Cash" via currency and other investments and hedges.

The intention of cash management is hedging to facilitate commerce and protect the balance sheet, not speculation.

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

#517

Post by wickoff »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #349
andysinclair wrote: post #238

Here 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.

Bitcoin is too volatile to be useful as a currency, it is too volatile because its market cap is so small.

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

#518

Post by JeremyNT »

rzodkiew wrote: post #338

Bitcoin 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…

Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies solve some real problems that most people don't actually have - they allow for verifiable electronic transactions without having to trust any single entity in the chain.

The problem Bitcoin and other cryptos actually solves for most people is different. That problem is summarized as "I have (or can borrow, at a low rate) fiat currency, and want to get a much higher return on my investment than the low rates traditional savings provide."

Money is cheap right now, and essentially, the returns on these things beat inflation and stock markets. For now. But one of these days the market will collapse - you just have to make sure you get out before that happens.

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

#519

Post by svet_0 »

thehappypm wrote: post #424

I am embarrassed by the industry. How many of our generation's best and brightest minds are doing crypto and day trading? Imagine if these minds were focused on societal problems -- energy, health, food. I know multiple Harvard CS graduates who went right into the crypto space. What a waste.

Yeah who cares about financial systems, we should all just optimize wheat strains and build fusion reactors. So embarrassing.

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

#520

Post by bushbaba »

hfsp wrote: post #366
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Disagree. There’s a reason terrorists such-as hamas, al queda, isis choose to use btc.

https://www.coindesk.com/us-prosecutors-attempt-to-seize-bit...

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