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Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

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Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#611

Post by root_axis »

fbelzile wrote: post #558
lph wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, Tesla's Bitcoin purchase does make a lot of sense ... They then announced their Bitcoin purchase with fanfare that drove the price up, marking a quick return on their investment. Tesla is a car manufacturer! It doesn't make any sense at all! At any company that made sense, a CEO would lose his job for gambling $1B of company money in a casino totally unrelated to the company's business interests.

I'm just guessing here but they might be hedging against future trade restrictions set by China against US companies like Tesla. If another trade war was to happen, people in China might be able to buy a Tesla using Bitcoin vs having to buy a NIO.

How do you imagine that pans out for the Chinese buyer?

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#612

Post by jypepin »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #355
kerng wrote: post #336

Bitcoin has been around for a while now and it has been down talked quite a bit on HN whenever it comes up. It now has a larger market cap as Facebook - so the market sees more value in Bitcoin than Facebook. The sentiment on HN seem still be mostly against it whenever it comes up. I wonder why that is? I'd imagine 10 years from now Bitcoin will still be around and likely much larger than today - I'm less positive ab…

My opinion of Bitcoin will change when it stops using more electricity than entire countries, for something Visa can do for comparatively nothing. I would hold the same opinion of any technology which used so much energy when there was a less wasteful alternative. I also happen to be skeptical of Bitcoin's long-term outlook, but that's not why I'm actively against it as a technology. If it wasn't for the planet, I'd…

there is a lot of fuss about bitcoin energy needs, but plenty of proof that it's not well founded.

You compare it to Visa, but actually visa does only part of what bitcoin does (transactions), and does it using _other_ systems themselves also using energy (security, banking, etc).

Nowadays bitcoin is mostly seen as a store of value, to which it should then be compared to gold. Gold has a much higher carbon footprint than bitcoin, both for mining, storing, transactions, etc.

there are a lot of writings about this, some answering a recent article posted on HN here https://www.coindesk.com/what-bloomberg-gets-wrong-about-bit...

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#613

Post by [deleted] »

VoiceOfWisdom wrote: post #528
ac29 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hedging against what? There are plenty of ways to hedge against inflation risk or currency risk without buying into an asset that can lose 50% or more of its value very quickly (and has, a number of times).

How would you suggest hedging against the death of fiat currency without buying a non fiat currency?

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#614

Post by Bakary »

lph wrote: post #425
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The forefront of the Bitcoin frenzy isn't even on the blockchain, it's at the exchanges. Hardcore tech people and those who don't (or can't) trust institutions with their Bitcoin will pay the transaction fees to get their money out of exchanges and into their own wallet. The average retail investor, however, doesn't want to be their own bank. They just want in on the price action, while letting the exchange manage th…

> That said, Tesla's Bitcoin purchase does make a lot of sense ... They then announced their Bitcoin purchase with fanfare that drove the price up, marking a quick return on their investment. Tesla is a car manufacturer! It doesn't make any sense at all! At any company that made sense, a CEO would lose his job for gambling $1B of company money in a casino totally unrelated to the company's business interests.

It makes sense in a solidly virtualized casino economy

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#615

Post by xur17 »

pdimitar wrote: post #59
superbcarrot wrote: post #28

Does anyone else feel like: - they've missed an opportunity to get rich with minimal effort from crypto - still have absolutely no interest in jumping in at this point?

That's exactly how I feel. But is there a way to actually cash out? I mean, suppose you had 2 BTC for years. Can you literally get $100K right now in your bank account and can you actually exchange them easily for the fiat currency?

Yes, you could easily do this for 10s of millions of dollar right now on a number of exchanges. As you go up, you might need to find OTC desks, etc, but it's still very doable.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#616

Post by dodobirdlord »

DSingularity wrote: post #100
mrpopo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTC going up doesn't mean it has fundamental value. It's a speculative asset with more and more people getting on board. Hedge fund managers are rich. TV personalities are rich. Many PhD students are poor. This is not people making the right decisions. This is concentration of money because of economy volatility.

What do you consider fundamental value? Seems to me that people are willing to pay 50,000$ a BTC and companies are willing to hoard it. How is that not evidence that it has value?

Productive capital. Financial speculation is fun and all but it has to remain a sideshow to the real economy, since we fundamentally rely on individuals and companies investing in the creation of more productive capital. If it ever came to pass that hodling Bitcoin was actually the best use of money because it somehow became a universal deflationary currency, then the government would have to step in and deploy its monopoly on violence to abolish Bitcoin to protect the broader economy. Speculative hoarding of deflationary gold caused the great depression and the governments of the world at the time couldn't escape the trap due to gold-backed currencies. These days we have a better understanding of the relationship between inflation/deflation, currencies, investments, and productive capital, and something like the great depression is not going to be allowed to happen again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_(economics)

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#617

Post by root_axis »

didibus wrote: post #534
tyre wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla's stock has never been a car manufacturer stock. That's why it has so much short-selling against it. If you value it as a car manufacturer and compare it's (underlying business numbers):(stock price) to anything else, it's insane. "at any company that made sense" is true, to a point. But the point of tesla has been, for a not-insignificant number of people, not meant to make sense. It's faith based. It's cult b…

The challenge for Tesla and Elon is that I don't see the exit strategy? If Elon sells off his Tesla shares in any sizable quantity, it seems the stock would drop massively. If Elon steps down his involvement or passed away, same thing. So it seems it needs to keep on the show until Tesla can actually sustain its value somehow through normal business operations.

Fake it till you make it.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#618

Post by tsimionescu »

unnouinceput wrote: post #497
toyg wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it’s not completely unrelated: bitcoin drives energy consumption, which in turn drives demand for batteries of all shapes, which are a massive part of Tesla’s business plan.

Again with the energy point. The energy is insignificant compared with almost anything else. Wasn't some article that the sum of all standby electronics uses more energy than bitcoin and that's only in US? What are you, Apple? That gives no charger for "environmental reasons" while packaging its wireless headphones in a crapload of unnecessary plastics. If you are so energy consciousness then go bark at US military,…

Bitcoin consumes more electricity than entire countries - more than the Czech Republic for example. It consumes a third (or was it a fifth?) of all the electricity of all data centers in the world. It is by no means insignificant.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#619

Post by zaptheimpaler »

didibus wrote: post #534
tyre wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla's stock has never been a car manufacturer stock. That's why it has so much short-selling against it. If you value it as a car manufacturer and compare it's (underlying business numbers):(stock price) to anything else, it's insane. "at any company that made sense" is true, to a point. But the point of tesla has been, for a not-insignificant number of people, not meant to make sense. It's faith based. It's cult b…

The challenge for Tesla and Elon is that I don't see the exit strategy? If Elon sells off his Tesla shares in any sizable quantity, it seems the stock would drop massively. If Elon steps down his involvement or passed away, same thing. So it seems it needs to keep on the show until Tesla can actually sustain its value somehow through normal business operations.

Execs in any public company routinely sell shares at a pre-determined rate every quarter. Execs besides Elon have been selling as part of the plan, and company employees are free to sell as well.

According to SEC filings, Elon himself hasn't sold any recently, but he owns 20% of Tesla, worth about $10B today. Even if Tesla drops 10x, he would have $100M worth of shares. Not to mention all his other assets, shares in SpaceX etc. He has more money than he will ever need.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#620

Post by tfehring »

dleslie wrote: post #561
tootie wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to call them Ponzi schemes. This is the same but in slow motion. People are going to start taking their profits at some point and whoever takes them last will be holding the bag.

Ponzicoins :)

Obviously this was actually a thing. The whitepaper is really entertaining. https://ponzico.win/ponzico.pdf
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