Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future • Hacker News Board

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

#611

Post by BenoitEssiambre » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

tgraves83 wrote: post #571

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am dead serious. The FED did cause the great depression and a lot of it had to do with currency being tied too closely to a deflationary token (gold). >You cannot eat gold or bitcoin. That is precisely the problem. The economy can get into a bad equilibrium where hoarding intrinsically valueless tokens displaces investing in productive assets. This state can persist because the firsts to invest in productive things…

Do you think the government is going to tie the currency to bitcoin and we'll be on a bitcoin standard? That would be the equivalent and would mean bitcoin would be insanely valuable so maybe you should buy some. On the other hand, it's far more likely the fed will stick with fiat currency. You'll still get paid in USD, pay your taxes in USD but bitcoin will exist as an alternative store of value like gold. There is…

I admit that if central banks and governments don't get in on the dangerous hoarding process, the token bubble might resolve much better than in 1929. Let's hope that's what happens. However, cryptocoins might have stronger network effects and memetic effects than gold which might make them dangerous to the aggregate regardless of central bank involvement. You can buy more things more easily with bitcoin than with gold especially if companies like Tesla start accepting payment in bitcoins.

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

#612

Post by GizmoSwan » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

mrb wrote: post #489

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…

While away on vacation, I once sent $1000 in cold hard cash, on a Sunday, to an unbanked person in Los Angeles, in less than 1 hour, thanks to bitcoin and the recipient withdrawing it for cash at a Bitcoin ATM. There is not a single alternative service in the world that would have made this possible. If people thought a little beyond their personal use cases, they would understand the utility of Bitcoin/crypto for ma…

To an unbanked! person in Los Angeles? In a black market?

It is taxable in your hand as well as theirs. So any tax avoidance agenda makes the trade illegal.

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

#613

Post by notyourwork » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #371

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…

“The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.” -Satoshi Nakamoto Feb. 2009 If this isn’t resonating with you after the past year, I don’t know. I was forced to watch my government bungle a pandemic in the worst possible way and then asked t…

You should also rescind your right to streets and other public services. You don’t get to pick and choose which part of your countries debt you get to keep and which you can avoid.

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

#614

Post by tofuahdude » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

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.

Every time something significant happens in crypto, someone who thinks they know how people/society should spend their time comes in and makes this asinine comment.

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

#615

Post by tengbretson » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #413

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.” -Satoshi Nakamoto Feb. 2009 If this isn’t resonating with you after the past year, I don’t know. I was forced to watch my government bungle a pandemic in the worst possible way and then asked t…

> I was forced to watch my government bungle a pandemic in the worst possible way and then asked to pay for it for decades. No I don’t think I will. That has very little to do with currency and everything to do with you not wanting to pay taxes. You may think that COVID response has been a catastrophic waste of money but if you'd lost your job would you have claimed the increased unemployment benefits? I suspect the…

> That has very little to do with currency and everything to do with you not wanting to pay taxes.

> You may think that COVID response has been a catastrophic waste of money but if you'd lost your job would you have claimed the increased unemployment benefits? I suspect the vast majority of people would have.

Do our expenditures like unemployment benefits actually have any relationship with tax revenue at this point?

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

#616

Post by sixQuarks » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

tome wrote: post #474

sixQuarks wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me explain bitcoin in a way that hackers will understand. Bitcoin is javascript. Hackers don't like javascript. It's got a lot of terrible quirks. There are so many languages better than javascript. But that doesn't matter. Javascript is ubiquitous, and you can't avoid it. Bitcoin is the same. Either you accept it as the way things are and profit from it, or you keep pounding your head against the wall.

> Javascript is ubiquitous, and you can't avoid it. I can't avoid it if I want to do web frontend programming, agreed. So "what is the web frontend programming" in your analogy, i.e. the thing I can't do without Bitcoin?

That's actually false. You can do what javascript does on the front-end with web assembly.

Nevertheless, my point has gone right over your head if you have to ask a question like this.

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

#617

Post by mordymoop » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

Bitcoin “transactions” only appear to cost so much if you divide total energy usage by transactions. This is very silly, because it gives the impression that more transactions would lead to something like a linearly higher energy cost, which is not true; the energy cost is due to mining, and transaction validation comes along for the ride. You could try to figure out how to allocate the energy per transaction but only after you somehow set aside the energy required strictly for mining.

Another way of framing this is that for a system with a relatively low transaction volume, i.e. a small denominator, your “cost per transaction” is always going to look ridiculous.

All of that being said — I wish he had picked Ethereum instead.

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

#618

Post by JamesBarney » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

mrb wrote: post #489

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…

While away on vacation, I once sent $1000 in cold hard cash, on a Sunday, to an unbanked person in Los Angeles, in less than 1 hour, thanks to bitcoin and the recipient withdrawing it for cash at a Bitcoin ATM. There is not a single alternative service in the world that would have made this possible. If people thought a little beyond their personal use cases, they would understand the utility of Bitcoin/crypto for ma…

How large is the population of people who are both unbanked but sophisticated enough to use bitcoin?

95% of the population is banked, but only 11% own bitcoin.

https://www.fdic.gov/analysis/household-survey/index.html

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

#619

Post by iagovar » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

mrb wrote: post #489

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…

While away on vacation, I once sent $1000 in cold hard cash, on a Sunday, to an unbanked person in Los Angeles, in less than 1 hour, thanks to bitcoin and the recipient withdrawing it for cash at a Bitcoin ATM. There is not a single alternative service in the world that would have made this possible. If people thought a little beyond their personal use cases, they would understand the utility of Bitcoin/crypto for ma…

You can do that with SEPA? I mean, I just send money to my landlord every 1st day of the month, and I got it automated in my bank page.

And every bank account I had has this.

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

#620

Post by Pyramus » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

WA wrote: post #243

austenallred wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TeslaCharts has been flatly and inarguably wrong about 100 times by now, especially around things they declare “impossible according to the laws of physics.” To me it sounds like a person with an obsession trying to scour the internet for anything potentially bad, and it’s just sad. Elon’s flaws are pretty transparent. You don’t have to dig for them that hard.

100 times? Name a few please. Exclude all stock price forecats.

I would also be interested in a concrete example. E.g. TC discounts Tesla's tech advantage over competitors too much in my opinion, but flat out wrong? I'm curious.