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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

#281
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people need gold?

https://geology.com/minerals/gold/uses-of-gold.shtml And now, please reciprocate, why do people need Bitcoin? If Bitcoin disappeared right now, what would anyone (besides people who are holding it) be losing?

Those uses can not sustain its price.

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

#282
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.

My take: this was calculated. Notice an opportunity for easy money and get into Bitcoin under the pretense of selling cars for it, then pull out "temporarily" citing environmental reasons. They are now in a comfortable position to hold onto it for how long they might want to, without getting too many questions why a car maker is speculating with crypto coins. If they might need cash (or have to pretty up the quarterl…

I find it unbelievable that he would use a public company for this kind of speculation. It is grossly irresponsible.

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

#283
post #220
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…

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.

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

#284
post #255
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-inte…

> the btc network should be thought of as a settlement layer, rather than a payment layer

This ruins all of the stuff you mention. Or at least restricts these nice features to the rich. People don't have access to these features if they are only used indirectly through the major institutions they work with.

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

#285
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Layer 2 scaling solutions?

They are like Yeti: everybody talks about them, but no one has actually seen them.

People are using lightning right now. Your ignorance of it isn't proof of absence.

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

#286
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever people start talking about Big Brain 4D Chess I think, probably not it. Elon is pretty busy, before he got into space flight, he new very little about it. Some people at the time said as much. However 2 years later the same person said he was literally an expert on many things and had learned an insane amount. This seems more like Elon became convinced of the potential of crypto currency in general, told Tes…

I forgot to consider that he caused the spike in energy usage in the first place. I think this makes more sense.

Still, the outcome may be about the same. The incentives I described are still there and staring them in the face.

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

#287
post #220
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…

There's a really big difference between what public figures say and what they believe.

When you have the power to influence policy/markets/opportunities simply by saying the right or wrong thing, that starts to factor into public statements a lot more than what you actually believe.

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

#288
post #219

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…

You seem unaware of proof-of-stake and other initiatives that should significantly reduce Bitcoin's footprint.

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

#289
post #220
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…

I think what you want to say is that he doesn't have a crystal ball instead of him not being that bright. How can anyone predict any of the above before hand? Bitcoin remains probably one of the few perplexing behaviors from Musk.

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

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon is a gambler on a hot streak. He keeps making big bets that pay off, but the luck to cunning ratio is dangerously high. Some day the shoe is going to go cold and he's going to be fucked. He'll drop off the richest people list faster than he climbed it (which was too fast).

Just from a couple tweets he's made, I infer that Elon actually agrees that a lot of his wealth is fake. Tesla's valuation is insane, it's great evidence that markets are just kind of broken right now. We could speculate on why, but I decline to do that right now. It appears to me that he mostly focuses on the fundamentals of his companies, including engaging in braggadocio and performance art to pump interest and ke…

The market is partially broken because of him. He engaged in deliberate market manipulation to draw short seller blood.

Once it became clear he'd get nothing more than a slap on the wrist for that stunt they backed off and the hype machine had no counterbalance.

Once the shorts do come back though they will come back with a vengeance.

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