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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

#921

Post by spurgu »

kolinko wrote: post #783
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…

What you described is how a banking system in many countries works. I can send a wire transfer for free to any other person in Poland at 4am on saturday night, and they will get it instantly (some exceptions apply). I can even send them a direct code to withdraw a specific amount of money from most ATMs in the country, instantly and anonymously. (Could be to an unbanked person, but we don’t have those really - aside…

> I can send a wire transfer for free to any other person in Poland at 4am on saturday night, and they will get it instantly (some exceptions apply).

Depends on who you are, or who he is (or who he knows) and how much money you're sending, how much you've sent overall in the past X weeks/months, etc...

The concept of having electronic money that no one (banks nor governments) can touch is just incredibly appealing to me and has been so ever since I first discovered Bitcoin. I guess it's the anarchist/libertarian (I'm not politically affiliated) side in me... It goes hand in hand with what made the internet (and BBS's before that) so incredibly exciting back in the 90's.

Bitcoin definitely has its issues, but the attraction is still there, I can't shake it.

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

#922

Post by BlueTemplar »

xnx wrote: post #882
sixQuarks wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Initially it was meant to be used as currency, but it's become more of an asset class now, mainly used as a store of value, similar to gold. Do you know how difficult it is to get millions of people to agree that something is a store of value, not only agree, but to put their money where their mouth is? THIS is why bitcoin is where it's at.

It happens periodically: tulips, Beanie Babies, etc.

Hmm, how long did the tulip mania last?

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

#923

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

whb07 wrote: post #555
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…

The "economy" is some number larger than (2^999999999999999999999999999999999) of decisions done at every second. Unless you or some cabal of godly beings exist they cannot determine whats a "good" equilibrium in the first place. Furthermore, to describe descriptions good/bad to a market is against the definition of a market. It is what it is. A high price signal lets others that they should come in and get involved…

Even Milton Friedman, champion of free market capitalism recognized that widely used currencies were special because they are the yard sticks everything else is measured against. That's why for example, he proposed as a free market alternative to government currencies, a currency based on a k-percent rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman%27s_k-percent_rule) which would avoid the problems with deflationary currencies.

Someone should make a crypto Friedman coin based on this. Of course this would remove the ponzi, get-rich-quick aspect, so most wouldn't care for it.

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

#925

Post by MrMan »

pelliphant wrote: post #538
zionic wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would appear the corpo mercs have outnumbered the hackers for some time.

Am I a "corpo merc" since I don't like crypto currency? What does that even mean?

corpo mercs are greedy opportunists

HN is full of them pretending to be hackers, and who play upon hackers' collective sense of self to peddle investment schemes

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

#926

Post by Kaze404 »

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…

> 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.

https://business.ebanx.com/en/resources/payments-explained/p...

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

#927

Post by icedchai »

oleganza wrote: post #872
icedchai wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

That is basically what I do... I spend a little bit every year. These days I mostly cash it out and invest it into stocks and ETFs. About 5% of my net worth is still in crypto.

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

#929

Post by nojvek »

rvz wrote: post #156
luxuryballs wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will, that’s when you buy. This happens every single time, whether it’s $250 to $70 or $12,000 to $5,000 or $40,000 to $????... ride the wave.

The people who bought at <$20,000 are already in 100% profit so a great time to take some off the table if a crash were to come. (Which I think will happen)

You lose money when you buy, and you make money when you sell. Everything else is somewhat fake money.

So they're in 100% profit if they sold. Usually when you want to sell, everyone else wants to sell too (see Mar 2020) so it all comes crashing

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

#930

Post by BlueTemplar »

me551ah wrote: post #438
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 don't get why bitcoin is worth so much.Bitcoin is called a store of value like gold, but gold has inherent uses. If the price of gold went to zero then you could still use it to make jewellery or use it for electrical conductivity. If the price of bitcoin goes to zero then it's worthless. It's also not environmentally friendly and bitcoin mining uses up 0.21% of the world's power supply. And all of this energy is u…

Bitcoin (still) isn't worth that much compared to gold : gold's (above ground) reserves are around 12T$, while Bitcoin's market cap is (currently) 0.6T$.
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