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

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

#551

Post by marcusverus »

andrepd wrote: post #521
kevinbache wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's single handedly accelerated the adoption of electric cars by 10 years while advancing literal rocket science to the point where launches will be done 10x cheaper. For those of us who measure by outcomes, he's a genius.

I hate this "capitalist-worship" for lack of a better term. He "single-handedly" did nothing, he merely supplied the capital and the coordination for a team of ~hundreds of thousands of people to build rockets and EVs.

This isn't an attack on your collectivist worldview, it's an objective observation. It's simply a matter of fact that if there was no Elon Musk, reusable rockets would have been delayed two decades at a bare minimum. The same goes for transforming EVs from clunky sideshows to "S3XY" vehicles. Hence, he single-handedly made these changes happen.

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

#552

Post by jl2718 »

orblivion wrote: post #156
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.

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…

BTC would not survive a PoS fork. The threat model requires a consensus mechanism to include a huge network of hyper vigilant greedy actors that may enter or leave at will. For a linear utxo blockchain, there’s nothing but PoW with those properties.

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

#553

Post by logicchains »

martimarkov wrote: post #485
akouri wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla would have been dead if he had not brought the Fremont factory back online. I give him credit for this, as I think ignoring the “rules” was one of the smartest business moves ever made in 2020.

Would you think the same way if it was your life on the line? Not livelihood. Live. I think when evaluating situations compassion for people's lives is a more important matter than economical wellbeing. (Even if it's their wellbeing)

Most of his workers were in an age group at negligible risk from covid; they'd be more likely to die in a road accident driving home.

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

#554

Post by agnosticmantis »

brutal_chaos_ wrote: post #262

So many comments in this thread suggest Musk is an all knowing individual. "How could he miss this?" "I can't believe someone so wealthy can miss something so important!" And so on. This is a really sad view, IMHO. Wealth may provide more opportunities to learn and expand, but that doesn't mean the wealthy know everything. He should have done his research, maybe he did and decided to go that route anyway, but wealth…

Musk is not a random wealthy dude. His wealth comes mainly from Tesla shares, a company that (apparently) aims to accelerate the transition to renewable energy.

So this reasoning doesn’t seem correct.

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

#555

Post by Sargos »

inter_netuser wrote: post #525
Barrin92 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Proof of stake lets players with the most money have the most say. Okay, and what do you think the mining equipment is acquired with exactly?

Miners don't really have much say, they cannot impose rules on the network, unlike PoS stakers. PoS malicious stakers lose nothing in case of a split. Miners should they attempt a 51% attack will lose everything. Not even in the same category.

>PoS malicious stakers lose nothing in case of a split

You can only support one side of a fork in PoS and if you try to play both sides anyone can form a proof showing you mined both forks and your stake gets slashed. This is the Nothing At Stake problem and well understood which makes your comment pretty confusing.

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

#556

Post by logicchains »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #543

I still don't think the environmental damage is the scariest part of cryptocurrencies since there are likely technological solutions. As even Douglas Adams tried to warn, it's the deflation that is worrisome: https://benoitessiambre.com/specter.html

America was in a deflationary environment for much of the 1800s and GDP grew at faster rate than the 1900s, with smaller crashes (nothing as big as the Great Depression or the GFC). Anti-deflationary propaganda is just FUD funded by an entire industry heavily invested in the current system: https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-cantillon-effect-why-...

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

#557

Post by [deleted] »

rblion wrote: post #447

I own $0 crypto. Good in theory but if you look at it very closely, the whole thing is a racket that enriches a few people manipulating the market and enchants millions of speculators who want to 'get rich quick'. My gut says it's best to invest in myself and build things that are universally appealing and useful.

[deleted]

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

#558

Post by Axien »

jlokier wrote: post #369
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 then sold at a huge profit No they didn't, according to the announcment: >> Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.

Why do you need to own Bitcoin for transactions?

Someone wants to buy a 50k car. They give you 50k worth of Bitcoin. You immediately sell the Bitcoin for 50k of dollars.

At no time did you need to own Bitcoin before the transaction.

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

#559

Post by jcranmer »

johnisgood wrote: post #544
tzs wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previous attempts at mRNA vaccines had failed, due to the side effects being too serious. There was no reason to believe in May 2020 that a COVID mRNA vaccine would be any different than all the previous mRNA failures.

Can I have sources to that claim? I would like to use it.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/15/co... is a post from April of last year detailing the different types of vaccines, which does mention some of the issues mRNA vaccines have had in the past. I think there's a fuller discussion of mRNA somewhere on that blog, but the gist of it is "we've been trying this for about a decade and we might finally have all the kinks worked out."

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

#560

Post by staticman2 »

anonAndOn wrote: post #174
slg wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is incredibly hard to imagine that the upside in Musk's personal Bitcoin stake, whatever it is, is anywhere close to approaching his personal stake in Tesla. Something like 70% of his net worth is Tesla stock. It would be unbelievably stupid to jeopardize the value of the Tesla stock to pump up the value of his Bitcoin holdings. Some of these anti-Musk conspiracy theories are truly crazy especially considering the…

> Something like 70% of his net worth is Tesla stock. For now. Spacex is going to be the most valuable company on Earth and Mars.

"For some people... Tesla is a religion."
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