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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

#871

Post by simonebrunozzi »

Waterluvian wrote: post #836
nly wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I've learned investing so far: never sell anything . It really only ever makes sense to sell if doing so will positively change your lifestyle, or you have no alternative. Examples of when selling might be a good idea are buying a house, retiring, going through hard times, loss of a job etc. Rebalancing is fine too, but I'd personally only bother to do that if your portfolio is massively distorted (like it…

I sold because it's an open tab in my life I don't care about anymore. I don't like having open tabs I forget about everywhere.

I am very familiar with this concept, and feel similarly to you - but never thought of it as "tabs" (I assume you intend browser tabs, like I do?). It's a brilliant metaphore.

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

#872

Post by oleganza »

icedchai wrote: post #717
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 is nearly useless as a currency. Every time I've spent it on something, I've regretted it. Example: The bitcoin I used to buy that mechanical keyboard in 2014 would be worth more than a new car today...

Yet you did it more than once? Kinda like you have personal preference between having X portion of your savings S to be exchanged for goods today (life is short) and leaving S-X for the future uses (life is not that short)?

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

#873

Post by simonebrunozzi »

lottin wrote: post #322

This is very worrying. Don't they have financial advisors at Tesla? An automaker should focus on making cars. This is what they specialise in and what they are good at. They should not be speculating with financial assets. Tesla shareholders can do that themselves, if they wish to.

Would you consider Porsche an automaker? I assume so; then, it might surprise you that most of their revenues and profits don't come from producing and selling cars, but rather from financial products.

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

#874

Post by conanbatt »

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…

If the existence of fiat currencies is to levy taxes, what better use-case for bitcoin can you imagine than to protect its user from taxes?

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

#876

Post by freediver »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #870
freediver wrote: post #865

YFFA (your favorite fintech app) still has many advantages over Bitcoin. When sending money: YFFA free, Bitcoin not free YFFA instant, Bitcoin not instant YFFA has fraud protection, Bitcoin does not YFFA approved by government regulation, Bitcoin still not However, there is one thing YFFA does not give you, a shot at 10x or 100x your money.

And most people in the world can't sign up for an YFFA. (not that Bitcoin is simpler or without its problems, but at least anyone could use it).

True, nice catch.

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

#877

Post by Closi »

bsaul wrote: post #241
Closi wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I made a bet with a friend based on that same reasoning two years ago, i know owe him. I believe the problem with market price in general is that there's no way to correctly evaluate if a price is "rational" or not. There are so many things plain wrong with the current state of the economy (from central banks monetary policies, to inflation, to interest rates) that i don't even consider bitcoin to be anything special…

I think the bet with your friend was sensible - but it does show the problem with bubbles, which is you can never predict when they go pop :)

I've got no idea if it will pop in 1 day or in 50 years, but I think I've just got to stick to my guns that the fundamentals aren't there. And maybe I'll loose a lot of money compared to investing, but again, you never know where you are in the bubble cycle!

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

#878

Post by MuffinFlavored »

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

Who in this modern era is unbanked and how did that unbanked person turn around and spend the $1,000 in BTC you sent them?

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

#879

Post by oleganza »

narcissismo wrote: post #551
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…

Large numbers of the 'get rich quick' crowd that you speak of become poor after each crash. More will follow. Each time this happens, I stand in awe of the brilliance of bitcoin - not so much the details of UTXOs or hash magic, but the choice of time base and halving intervals. Its as if it were designed to be a FOMO feedback loop from the outset. The fact that its still working after so many boom/bust cycles is amaz…

I think halvings-driving-fomo is a myth. Each halving is possibly a catalyst for the crowds-waiting-to-jump-in, but not the reason for them occuring in the first place. Even without halvings, there would be speculative bubbles, then they'd pop, and the bubble attracted attention and people would start forming a line, but not buying until price begins to confidently move upwards.

Since there's little actual utility in using bitcoin right away (even if it was accepted everywhere, but you have fiat, why would you need to buy btc and immediately sell it?), people who'd like to invest would never rush buying until price stabilizes and begins growing. This naturally produces these "steps": BTC goes up 5-10x, then mania kicks in, then it goes 2-3x higher and then pops 2-3x down. Every convinced investor bought before the mania phase, weak hands sold off at a moderate return or at a loss, while a bunch of new people got interested.

Halvings are just one of those points that help tipping off the balance for the already formed crowd.

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

#880

Post by SuchAnonMuchWow »

y04nn wrote: post #281

Why directly buy the Bitcoins with Tesla the automaker? It makes no sense to me. If Musk is interested with cryptocurrencies, he should have setup a new startup dedicated with processing transactions from cryptocurrencies to fiat (he already has more than enough experience in the domain with PayPal) and facilitate the payment with crypto for Tesla (and other merchants). Considering the high volatility of cryptocurren…

Elon found that he can manipulate bitcoin price quite freely, without any regulations issues. He can use that do make a lot of wealth, and its probably not illegal (not a lawyer tho, so I'm not sure). And Tesla has more cash than him personally, so it makes more sense if its Tesla doing the move.
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