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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

#691

Post by charcircuit »

pelliphant wrote: post #457
DennisP wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If another cryptocurrency fixed the scaling problem so it could be used as a currency, would you have a different view?

Not OP, but I wouldn't. I consider the tools available to central banks to be actually usefull. Example: The ability to print more or less money depending on what is needed.

I could in 2 minutes deploy a new smart contract for a coin that allows for the owner to mint money whenever they want. Cryptocurrency doesn't stop a coin like that from existing.

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

#692

Post by rcstank »

fabianhjr wrote: post #559
patricius wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are practical reasons that getting rid of currency - or money I assume you mean - is a bad idea. It would be much more difficult to exchange goods and services if we had to barter for instance. But perhaps you have some alternative in mind that I haven't thought of.

> It would be much more difficult to exchange goods and services if we had to barter for instance. But perhaps you have some alternative in mind that I haven't thought of. There has been very few research and development into decentralized economic planning. (Imagine if only a fraction of the development resources that have gone into High Frequency and Momentum Trading had been invested into Decentralized Economic Pl…

Isn't decentralized planning essentially the current economy? If I have a skill to provide a service, I can start my own business in my town to make a living. I don't have to accept currency as payment. I can more or less accept payment via other goods such as food for my family. In smaller towns this is still not unheard of. My father in law is a mechanic and many people pay him with goods rather than currency (he still accepts cash, however).

If a competitor opened up next to him, they'd both then compete, thus trigger your decentralized planning since they both have to innovate or come up with methods to gain customers.

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

#694

Post by qqii »

kwanbix wrote: post #569
mrb wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I send 1000 euros per month to another person on a monthly basis using an app called Remitly. It charges me a fixed fee of 3.99 IIRC. It arrives within the hour to her bank account. 24 hours at most. There are many others like it, Azimo, and even WU has an app. I don't see what is so special about what you say or I am missing something.

> unbanked

Imagine the same situation but the other person doesn't have a bank account.

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

#695

Post by woeirua »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #494
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.

Think of the crypto programmer who make it possible for poor Venezuelans to have an island of crypto inflation stability when their Bolívars are worth toilet paper. I don't know of any feel goody NGO where a Harvard grad could feel woke working at that could do that.

This is a pretty weak argument. Venezuelans are using physical USD on the black market to get around their weak currency. At the end of the day, crypto is only helping the wealthy in Venezuela.

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

#696

Post by pwinnski »

buildbuildbuild wrote: post #363
graeme wrote: post #249

Earlier 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?

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.

It trades the requirement to open an account for a requirement to create and maintain a wallet, which, given the most common demographics of the unbanked, doesn't seem any better.

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

#697

Post by astrolince »

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…

You don't get it because you are privileged, we get it in the third world, the things that you see as dumb and simple, aren't granted at all here

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

#698

Post by uberswe »

kseistrup wrote: post #607
noja wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is not a single alternative service in the world that would have made this possible. Apart from any "send money to your relatives back home" service, sms banking in entire continents, or Hawala. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala

I agree. I regularly send money from Denmark to unbanked friends in shanty towns in Zambia through World Remit — it works 24/7 as fast as an sms. https://www.worldremit.com/en

I didn't know about these services and it's great that they exist. What makes bitcoin different is that it eliminates the need to trust a third party such as a bank to handle the transaction.

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

#699

Post by helen___keller »

nineplay wrote: post #674
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…

I tried, I sincerely did. I had many friends who were strong believers in bitcoin. I read articles, I watched videos, and every time it felt like hucksterism. There was no serious discussion of the advantages of bitcoin, no attempt to explain blockchain. There was a lot of repeating, over and over again, how amazing and revolutionary bitcoin was. "For the first time ever, a computer owns currency!" one youtuber said…

> "For the first time ever, a computer owns currency!" one youtuber said without the slightest effort to explain why I should care.

The truth is for most people, there's no reason to care. Maybe there will be in the future, but not yet.

Most people aren't looking for an investment vehicle, a replacement for USD, a way to challenge central banks, or a way to perform zero-trust financial transactions.

Most people want to do what they already do in day-to-day life but with less overhead costs or more ease of use. Bitcoin does nothing for this: on-chain transaction fees are too high, lightning network is not there yet, very few places offer support for btc payments, and so on. All these problems add up to a simple conclusion that btc is not useful for the average person, so instead proponents have to sell a majestic vision of the future or a get-rich-quick scheme. Most go for the latter.

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

#700

Post by usehackernews »

loceng wrote: post #564
capableweb wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Says the "Product Manager at a mid size fortune 500 tech company", how much of your day consists on focusing 100% on societal problems really? Besides shitting on other peoples choices, why don't you try to reach out to the graduates and ask them why they work in the cryptocurrency space? Most of the people I know, including myself, have "improving the world" as the reason for working on cryptocurrencies. Even though…

Do you not see the pitfalls of the MLM structure of Bitcoin, along with the "army of HODLers" who are financially incentivized to speak positively and promote Bitcoin? Consensus through profit, financial incentive, is lazy - and arguably greedy - vs. doing the actual work of building real trust, and aligning people through real trust and relationship, community building; there is an argument that Bitcoin is required…

Your naivety of bitcoin use cases is very stuck in the Silicon Valley perspective. Not everyone has ways to store their money, earn interest on money, and receive loan opportunities.

Bitcoins accessibility to people without banks is an extremely valuable asset to the world. This is at least 30% of the world population.

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