Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by JohnJamesRambo » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

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…

“The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.” -Satoshi Nakamoto Feb. 2009

If this isn’t resonating with you after the past year, I don’t know. I was forced to watch my government bungle a pandemic in the worst possible way and then asked to pay for it for decades. No I don’t think I will. Bitcoin is a way for me to step outside that debt I did not want or deserve.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1

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

#372

Post by lm28469 » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

RhodoGSA wrote: post #320

lm28469 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptos are purely a speculation vessel, they don't fix many of the problems they claim to fix and add tons of problems over other currencies I'm fine with cryptos as long as they're not pitched as something they're not

Look at polkadot. You can exchange any arbitrary data across parachains. How is that not the internet but better?

> Polkadot is a heterogeneous multi-chain interchange and translation architecture which enables customised side-chains to connect with public blockchains.

> Polkadot provides unprecedented economic scalability by enabling a common set of validators to secure multiple blockchains.

keyword bingo !

What problems does it solve ? Who's problems does it solve ?

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

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Post by naraga » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

rich_sasha wrote: post #342

At times like this, I’m not sure if I’m the only sane person in a world of lunatics, or the only lunatic in a world of normal people.

seems like you just didnt dyor

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

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Post by I_am_tiberius » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

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…

I don't understand such kind of comments. Let's talk again after you experienced a bank cancelling your business account for no reason with seemingly having landed on a shared hidden blacklist that makes it impossible to get a new bank account.

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

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Post by cconroy » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #297

whitepaint wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why has gold prevailed over thousands of years while almost all fiat currencies went to 0?

Gold stores value but it hasn’t really appreciated. Whereas the claim for bitcoin is that it will soar in value. Why? Warren Buffett said it best on gold. It just sits there. Here’s one quote I found. In another he compared buying gold in 1900 vs us stocks. “ I will say this about gold. If you took all the gold in the world, it would roughly make a cube 67 feet on a side…Now for that same cube of gold, it would be wo…

he is conflating things with value and a good unit to measure said value -- which is itself very valuable.

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

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Post by sixQuarks » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

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…

Initially it was meant to be used as currency, but it's become more of an asset class now, mainly used as a store of value, similar to gold.

Do you know how difficult it is to get millions of people to agree that something is a store of value, not only agree, but to put their money where their mouth is? THIS is why bitcoin is where it's at.

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

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Post by febeling » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

burkaman wrote: post #318

febeling wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin miners use surplus energy in remote places with lots of thermal or hydroelectric power. Remote China and Iceland. This electricity often can't be put to any other use anyway. The price of energy is probably enough to ensure this. Besides, the cost of maintaining Bitcoin has to be compared with holding up a fiat currency empire like the US. This requires lots of military, suppression of democracy and generally…

Energy grids are very big, and are planned very intentionally. Renewable energy produced in remote places is often used to power far away cities. It's very unlikely that a consistent energy source capable of powering a large bitcoin mine would not be integrated into the grid if the mine wasn't there. Here's some further reading: https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoins-climate-impact-global-c... https://www.cell.com/joul…

The grids are large, but the transport is very inefficient. That's why Bitcoin mining is becoming an alternative to previous ways to avoid wasting energy surplus, like melting aluminum ore.

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

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Post by bhupy » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

nly wrote: post #242

Waterluvian wrote: post #30

I bought $100 of BTC a while ago for fun. I watched it go up and down and mostly up. I got bored, and sold it for cash to donate... literally an hour before the big spike just earlier. I know about the fallacies of predicting the market. I understand 20/20 hindsight. But to actually experience it is such a strong lesson. To be flooded with, "ohhh I'm such an idiot!" and then think about how there's just no way I coul…

The thing I've learned investing so far: never sell anything . It really only ever makes sense to sell if doing so will positively change your lifestyle, or you have no alternative. Examples of when selling might be a good idea are buying a house, retiring, going through hard times, loss of a job etc. Rebalancing is fine too, but I'd personally only bother to do that if your portfolio is massively distorted (like it…

> It really only ever makes sense to sell if doing so will positively change your lifestyle, or you have no alternative.

Hmm, but what about opportunity cost? I think the challenge is that it's impossible to know a priori what the "alternatives" even are.

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

#379

Post by nly » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

tekkk wrote: post #344

nly wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I've learned investing so far: never sell anything . It really only ever makes sense to sell if doing so will positively change your lifestyle, or you have no alternative. Examples of when selling might be a good idea are buying a house, retiring, going through hard times, loss of a job etc. Rebalancing is fine too, but I'd personally only bother to do that if your portfolio is massively distorted (like it…

Noo, you should not hodl something forever just because you bought it and it's precious to you. The thing about investing and stock market in general is, that people are constantly seeking the _best_ returns. If you have invested in something and it goes up by 10% in a year while a similar asset goes up 50%, you should probably re-evaluate your investment. I have noticed that companies and investments do roughly divi…

You're subscribing to trend-following strategy, which is your prerogative, but if your 50% return "similar asset" is really similar to something you already hold, then why didn't you hold it already as part of a diversified portfolio? If you had you would have shared some of the gain, whereas jumping ship you may find you missed the boat.

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

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Post by EtienneK » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

I love the idea of Bitcoin. But, as someone who's been working in banking for more than a decade - what problem does Bitcoin solve? Serious question; 'cause I'm failing to come up with a good answer.

Edit: The closest I've come to answering this: To me Bitcoin is more a decentralized international payment protocol (such as SWIFT); not a store of value / currency. But I rarely see it being pitched in that way.