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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

#951

Post by kgwgk »

andreygrehov wrote: post #415
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…

> by replacing currency with a worse kind of currency. The reason why Bitcoin is a mystery for many people is exactly because of this ^. Bitcoin is NOT a currency. It doesn't position itself as a currency. This fairytale is long gone, forget about it. Bitcoin is a store of value. It cost $7.6M and took five years to repatriate 53,780 gold bars worth $27B back from the US to Germany. It's >1000X faster and >10X cheape…

> It doesn't position itself as a currency. This fairytale is long gone, forget about it.

Bitcoin doesn’t position itself as anything.

In other comments, though, you can see people are still defending its usefulness as currency.

Your example is a bit strange, by the way. Transatlantic bank transfers in your currency of choice have been a solved problem for decades.

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

#952

Post by cbHXBY1D »

ac29 wrote: post #901
zupreme wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well ham radio operation, in the USA at least, requires a license. Are you proposing that everyone get ham-radio-licensed as a prerequisite to participating in the new economy?

You also can't use it for anything you have a "pecuniary interest" in. Most agree that means any commercial transactions are not allowed (with the exception of selling radio equipment to other ham radio licensees).

Also, encryption is illegal over packet radio.

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

#953

Post by chrischen »

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…

There's a reason your use case is difficult to do and it has nothing to do with technology. It's difficult due to anti-money laundering laws and to prevent funding terrorism.

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

#954

Post by chrischen »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #911
cateye wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Since every bitcoin transaction is recorded, law enforcement is rather helped. There are "mixers" that supposedly allow to make it harder to figure out, but that didn't stop them from busting Silk Road !

The grandparent's use case of laundering it through an ATM in fact circumvents this.

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

#957

Post by exclusiv »

neop1x wrote: post #941
exclusiv wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because someone doesn't like Bitcoin doesn't mean it's a misunderstanding because they're privileged. Bitcoin IS a terrible currency because it's volatile. Really the worst aspect to have in a currency. Also, your statement alludes to Bitcoin being the one true way, as if there are no other options for third world countries. Volatility in a currency is a terrible idea and it gets even more terrible of an idea wh…

Fiat money is also volatile like crazy. Look at various forex pairs. USDCZK for example had 22% change in the past year and both are "stable" currencies.

You're talking about exchange. But even in that example, it's not anywhere near the equivalent of going from ~17k to 3.5k, then up to 45k+ as bitcoin.

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

#958

Post by freediver »

eecks wrote: post #948
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.

YFFA can also just ban you for any reason

... but if you lose it, you haven't kissed your money goodbye for good.

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

#959

Post by lawn »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #931
lawn wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mainly the question 'what can I actually do with a bitcoin?' If we're talking about cryptocurrencies in general, then start here: https://whycryptocurrencies.com/eli5.html

How many of those benefits are based on regulation avoidance and will go away after crypto is more main stream or after its disruption will force institutions into offering more agile features through existing institutions (like faster cheaper transfers)?

The only ones legally questionable are the use of darknet markets and offshore banking (which isn't illegal, but maybe should be).

While it's true that other solutions may improve, and I think they might be forced to, it's difficult to imagine middlemen surviving when the fee they can extract goes to zero. It's also difficult to imagine another system providing irreversible transactions as quickly as cryptos do.

And I don't think any of the benefits go away after crypto goes mainstream.

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

#960

Post by mparramon »

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…

This comment gives me https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 vibes.
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