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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

#731

Post by BurningFrog »

cateye wrote: post #588
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…

Do you really think this is a technical limitation of the current banking systems and a missing "feature"? Or is it the Bitcoin technology that "solves" this? The whole reason that it is not allowed to send money to an anonymous person is... Well don't actually know where to start explaining it. Anti money laundering? Counter-terrorism financing? Financial transaction reporting?

I think we agree on the facts. In the regular banking system, every transaction has to be approved by the authorities to happen.

With Bitcoin, just like cash, you can freely transfer it as you please.

The disagreement is if that is good or bad.

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

#732

Post by FabHK »

twox2 wrote: post #575
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…

How exactly does bitcoin liberate you from the shit that went down in the last year, besides the fact that luck, manipulation, and celebrity shilling propelled it to new heights. Not to mention that your taxes will be astronomical, and it's easy for the federal government to regulate it into oblivion. As for me, I loved the original promise of bitcoin. A decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash. It's not that thoug…

> There are lots of fascinating blockchain projects though

Do you have a list? Here [1] is a 2018 article from The Register titled "Blockchain study finds 0.00% success rate and vendors don't call back when asked for evidence", and here [2] is a 2021 article titled "IBM Blockchain Is a Shell of Its Former Self After Revenue Misses, Job Cuts: Sources" saying that

> “There is not really going to be a blockchain team any longer,” said a person familiar with the situation.

> Expectations for enterprise blockchain were too high, they said, adding that IBM “didn’t really manage to execute, despite doing a lot of announcements.”

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2018/11/30/blockchain_study_find...

[2] https://www.coindesk.com/ibm-blockchain-revenue-misses-job-c...

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

#733

Post by GizmoSwan »

byerobh wrote: post #709
GizmoSwan wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lol and who will punish it? Love this thing, might be the thing that saves the world from collectivists.

Participating in illegal activities does not make the coin more valuable but rather makes illegal transactions possible and criminalized the bit coin trade and hence soon it will become regulated.

So it is not like a bank transfer which is legit.

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

#734

Post by kilo__ »

rognjen wrote: post #289

The Venn diagram of TSLA, GME and bitcoin owners is nearly a circle.

I don't agree. I am active in different areas of the crypto space. You would be surprised to hear how few (big) bitcoin owners own traditional stocks or participated in the GME pump and dump.

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

#735

Post by maclured »

nprateem wrote: post #690
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 read an interesting book the other day on technology & economics that I'd highly recommend [1]. Tech creates efficiencies. Cryptos have potential to remove large swathes of the financial system, making things more efficient. [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Price-Tomorrow-Deflation-Abundant-F...

This. Smart contracts have lots of possible uses such as removing brokers (housing deeds), flattening distribution (there's one musician selling on etherium via a smart contract) etc.

Projects like particl [1] are creating a decentralised, anonymous marketplace with very low fees. Imagine being able to sell on ebay or amazon and only paying pennies in listing fees.

This is an early stage in crypto but the trend is inevitable.

[1] https://particl.io

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

#736

Post by andysinclair »

How does this square with Tesla's "green" mission?

Bitcoin consumes annually the electricity output of a small country. Surely if they were serious about tackling environmental issues they would not be investing in Bitcoin?

This news itself has pushed the price up over 15% today and no doubt enables another warehouse full of machines to start working 24/7 to mine more bitcoin...

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

#737

Post by Sevii »

byerobh wrote: post #703
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not claiming that a low-latency, no-borders, truly international digital currency is a bad thing. The main issue with Bitcoin is a complete lack of oversight. As a currency it's dreadful, suffering from tens of thousands of percent in deflation (= value increased relative to the cost of goods). As a trade product it's terrible, suffering from a lack of oversight from e.g. the SEC, opening it up to price manipulat…

Lack of oversight is the main feature, it only scares old women (not even all of them, who would have guessed but my grandma asked about btc in a call a year ago.) and why is deflation bad?

Deflation is supposedly bad because it encourages people to hold their money instead of investing it into businesses and new products.

The problem is that it is a prisoner's dilemma situation, where capital holders do not want to be 'encouraged' to invest their money even if it might be a net benefit to society as a whole.

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

#738

Post by Arrath »

I have trouble seeing how Bitcoin would make a reasonable vehicle for everyday transactions as long as it is so volatile.

Last week you could've bought a Model 3 for ~1.92 BTC. This morning you'd be spending ~1.58. That is a substantial change, and one side of the transaction would be taking a bath on it.

Certainly as btc usage becomes more widespread the value would level out and the volatility would decrease. As it is though, at least personally I couldn't see using bitcoins for purchases while the FOMO is looming and I'm thinking "what if it goes up and I save 20%?"

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

#739

Post by FDSGSG »

Closi wrote: post #192
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?

> I don't understand all the Crypto hate on this site. Since when have hackers become the luddites to new ways of finance? For me, it's because nobody can explain what the value offering of Bitcoin is - mainly the question 'what can I actualy do with a bitcoin?' . It's a bad currency because it is slow to exchange and costs lots of money to exchange - I can't use it to buy my coffee in the morning. It's a bad non-spe…

Bitcoin is an excellent currency for all sorts of illegal transactions.

Buying or selling drugs online? Odds are you're using in bitcoin. Running a ransomware extortion scheme? Odds are you're using bitcoin for payments. Running an international wire fraud scheme? Odds are your drops are paying you in bitcoin.

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