$365B wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin • Hacker News Board

Re: $365B wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin

#251

Post by fastball » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:43 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #234

onion2k wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX wins lots of space contracts with the help of Musk's "Occupy Mars" marketing. Tesla sells lots of cars on the promise of self-driving in the marketing. Musk bought BTC, single-handedly pumped the price of BTC, and then sold at a huge profit. I don't think he's a genius but Musk is definitely not stupid. He's just not playing the obvious game you think he's playing.

And denying covid kept workers in his factory, against the law. I think there needs to be some rule in discussion that as soon as you start arguing over if someone is dumb or evil, you have to stop. It's impossible to figure out which (or what mix) it actually is.

I'm fairly certain it was not in violation of "the law", but rather in violation of edicts from unelected officials.

Re: $365B wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin

#252

Post by fastball » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #220

sakopov wrote: post #31

Very perplexing behavior from Musk, I must say. Bitcoin's energy consumption has been front-and-center for a few years now and even more so when the bull market got hot. How does Musk decide to throw $1.5 billion worth of Tesla's cash into BTC without acknowledging this? I was expecting a little bit more due-diligence from him, but he's been absolutely consumed by crypto markets in general.

Cus he's not that bright. Isn't this the elephant in the room that no one wants to consider? Why do we have to start with the assumption that Musk is a genius, then work back from that? The dude thought covid would go away last May. He thinks it's easier to make Mars habitable than it is to keep the Earth habitable. He's thought that full self driving was 6 months away for literally 4 years now. And he didn't really…

Most of those things sound like techno-optimism, which isn't really the same as being dumb.

COVID could've started to go away in May with HCT / massively more aggressive vax.

Re: $365B wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin

#253

Post by kingo55 » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

tom_mellior wrote: post #240

pkulak wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cus he's not that bright. Isn't this the elephant in the room that no one wants to consider? Why do we have to start with the assumption that Musk is a genius, then work back from that? The dude thought covid would go away last May. He thinks it's easier to make Mars habitable than it is to keep the Earth habitable. He's thought that full self driving was 6 months away for literally 4 years now. And he didn't really…

I'm with you on everything except the Bitcoin bit. I think he knew exactly that (a) it's a highly speculative asset, and (b) he has enough rabid fans and general publicity to move the market in exactly the ways that he benefits from.

That makes it sound like he was doing a cheap pump and dump.

Maybe you're right.

Re: $365B wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin

#254

Post by a9h74j » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

selectodude wrote: post #71

slg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this a pump and dump? They never dumped. It is certainly stupidity from Musk, but I don't know why you are implying maliciousness when they are still holding Bitcoin and therefore they are equally hurt by this drop in value.

Last information we have is from late April saying that TSLA sold off 10 percent of their bitcoin holdings. Nobody has any idea what their holdings are today.

As a general question, how long until we see the first US company receive bailout money after losing money on cryptos?

Re: $365B wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin

#255

Post by nprz » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

worik wrote: post #219

orblivion wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, here's my Big Brain, 4D Chess take: Elon Musk wanted to adopt Bitcoin, but he knew there was this big problem with energy consumption. It's bad for his brand, and perhaps goes against his own ethics. Could he say "hey, get the energy consumption down and I'll go all-in with Tesla"? People wouldn't think much of it. Better option: Buy a huge stake in Bitcoin, announce that he'll be accepting bitcoin at Tesla, ge…

It is not possible to clean up bitcoin. Even if it moved entirely to renewable energy it would still be a massive opportunity cost. There are productive uses that energy could be put to. Bitcoin is not productive. Using gigawatts to process a few transactions a second, when existing financial frameworks can process millions of transactions a seconds at a fraction of the energy input means that bitcoin is always a mas…

There is utility in the bitcoin network that is not found in existing financial systems (censorship-resistant, seizure-resistant, borderless, and pseudonymous). And If you are thinking about the energy consumption of btc on a per transaction basis you are misunderstanding that the btc network should be thought of as a settlement layer, rather than a payment layer.

> Bitcoin is therefore best understood as a high-integrity utility-scale settlement network, similar to Fedwire [...] No surprise that like other real-time gross settlement systems, Bitcoin is a suitable base upon which other payments networks can be built. These are numerous, but they include off-chain transactions at exchanges, near-chain solutions like Lightning, sidechains with new trust models like Liquid and Rootstock, and smart contract platforms like Blockstack that rely on Bitcoin’s security.[0]

The myopic focus placed on the bitcoin networks energy consumption has always seemed absurd to me. Considering all the plastic junk manufactured in China, shipped on giant container ships all across the globe, emitting vast amounts of carbon, only to be thrown away a year later. To me, this alternative monetary systems provides far more utility to humanity than some plastic funko pop figurine. But the latter slips under the radar and the former attracts huge amounts of criticism. It's almost as if there is some concerted effort tarnish the public opinion of bitcoin.

[0] https://www.coindesk.com/frustrating-maddening-all-consuming...

Re: $365B wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin

#256

Post by amusedcyclist » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #108

kordlessagain wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is yet a killer use case, but AI is coming so just hang on a hot minute. Well be above 100k in six months. Machine learning APIs and Lighting payments are a match made in heaven.

You just strung together some meaningless words.

I hope its satire

Re: $365B wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin

#257

Post by dang » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

delaaxe wrote: post #188

You cited everything but the most important regarding this news: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/private-equity-f... (the reason for his change of mind)

I was simply listing the large previous HN discussions. Has there been one about that article? If so, link me to it and I'll happily add it.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27146806.

Re: $365B wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin

#258

Post by skinnymuch » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

marsrover wrote: post #85

uncomputation wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

…Congratulations? You didn’t actually address his concerns (although they were troll-y in nature). You just flexed about your own wealth, which just as easily could’ve come from betting on the right stock in 2013. I don’t understand crypto advocates whose only plus-one for crypto is that it made them personally rich. It just as easily could’ve gone nowhere and just because the market happens to be in your favor for n…

Ah, how little I care about any of this these days.

You got lucky. That doesn’t make you smart or cryptocurrency smart for anything that has happened. It would be silly for someone to smugly talk about how smart they are for winning the lottery.

Re: $365B wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin

#259

Post by fastball » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

worik wrote: post #219

orblivion wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, here's my Big Brain, 4D Chess take: Elon Musk wanted to adopt Bitcoin, but he knew there was this big problem with energy consumption. It's bad for his brand, and perhaps goes against his own ethics. Could he say "hey, get the energy consumption down and I'll go all-in with Tesla"? People wouldn't think much of it. Better option: Buy a huge stake in Bitcoin, announce that he'll be accepting bitcoin at Tesla, ge…

It is not possible to clean up bitcoin. Even if it moved entirely to renewable energy it would still be a massive opportunity cost. There are productive uses that energy could be put to. Bitcoin is not productive. Using gigawatts to process a few transactions a second, when existing financial frameworks can process millions of transactions a seconds at a fraction of the energy input means that bitcoin is always a mas…

Layer 2 scaling solutions?

Re: $365B wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin

#260

Post by Siira » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

delaaxe wrote: post #186

rchaud wrote: post #164

Musk blaming excessive energy use for withdrawing from BTC sounds like a ruse, considering that he of all people absolutely knew that going in. I smell Teslacoin in the works. A ostensibly green cryptocurrency, with his face on it.

He changed his mind because of this: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/private-equity-f...

You're either clueless, or an astroturf, or a troll.