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

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

#521

Post by bl557 »

EtienneK wrote: post #380

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.

Some of my favorite "Intro to Bitcoin" pieces -

"Bitcoin For The Open Minded Skeptic" - https://www.paradigm.xyz/Bitcoin_For_The_Open_Minded_Skeptic...

"Stone Ridge 2020 Shareholder Letter" - https://www.microstrategy.com/content/dam/website-assets/col...

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

#522

Post by GreenHeuristics »

INTPenis wrote: post #461
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…

Let me demystify it for you. It's used for drugs. That's how I view it. A very small minority of die hards are trying to use it for other things, donations of course, but it's mostly used for drugs. There's a "paper" on pnas claiming the opposite but if you actually read it they make massive assumptions in it. I can't believe they were allowed to publish a paper based on assumptions.

The story is literally about Tesla buying 1.5B usd worth of it. Sure Elon has some interests in the direction but I doubt Tesla is going to use the bought Bitcoin for drugs.

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

#524

Post by mywittyname »

sygma wrote: post #429
neilwilson wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Bitcoin is a way for me to step outside that debt I did not want or deserve" Try paying your taxes in Bitcoin. Then you'll find that it has nothing to do with trust and everything to do with avoiding having your assets stripped by the IRS. You want to live in a jurisdiction, then you pony up the tokens that jurisdiction demands. Or you lose your liberty and everything you own.

> At the city level, [Miami mayor] Suarez’s ambitions are equally ambitious. He’s “looking at” ways to pay municipal employees a percentage of their salary in bitcoin and allow residents to use bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for “payments and fees,” including taxes. https://www.coindesk.com/miami-mayor-previews-favorable-cryp...

I bet people still earn $50,000 a year and pay $1,500 a year in property taxes; not 1.2 btc or whatever.

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

#525

Post by bl557 »

mrb wrote: post #489
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…

While away on vacation, I once sent $1000 in cold hard cash, on a Sunday, to an unbanked person in Los Angeles, in less than 1 hour, thanks to bitcoin and the recipient withdrawing it for cash at a Bitcoin ATM. There is not a single alternative service in the world that would have made this possible. If people thought a little beyond their personal use cases, they would understand the utility of Bitcoin/crypto for ma…

https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1357757736394444800

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

#526

Post by acapybara »

graeme wrote: post #308
RhodoGSA wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin unleashes a million possibilities and overall guides the market. Check out Ethereum, Polkadot and Cardano if you want to see a real use case - Until then the usecase for bitcoin is the same as gold. But one day Bitcoin will pour it's 'Gold' Into the broader crypto market.

Does ethereum in some way depend on bitcoin? I could see there being some crypto use case I haven’t understood yet. But I don’t understand why bitcoin specifically needs to rise in value. It seems like a rent based system rewarding the original owners. And that would only work if other systems depended on bitcoin.

No, Ethereum does not specifically depend on Bitcoin.

However, the use cases are very different. Bitcoin is about money (as a distinct concept from currency). Think of it as a new type of central bank --that's Bitcoin's target market, and always has been (look up "Chancellor on the brink" in the 1st Bitcoin block). Bitcoin also intends to be peer-to-peer cash. This is what the lightning network aims to be, or the BCH fork depending on your point of view.

Ethereum is about smart contracts. Think: decentralized organizations, tokenized probabilistic outcomes, insurance, yield generating investments, etc.

As it turns out, the two can be very complementary. For example, Bitcoin can be wrapped (WBTC or similar) and represented on the Ethereum chain. This allows Bitcoin to be a store of value which can be collateralized and borrowed against using an Ethereum contract (e.g. Compound, AAVE, etc.). This is one narrow, but important use case: Ethereum can enable BTC holders to access liquidity.

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

#527

Post by aseerdbnarng »

Majromax wrote: post #507
aseerdbnarng wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People dont use dollars because they choose to. They use dollars because they have to. The US government doesnt need to earn dollars to spend them. It simply has to require for us to earn dollars to pay it taxes to enforce the use of its currency.

But people do choose to use US Dollars. Emerging economies facing currency problems frequently become "dollarized" on a de facto or de jure basis precisely because the currency is so liquid (internationally) and so stable. Inside its borders the US Dollar also derives value from chartalism, but the currency clearly has other sources of de facto value.

Very true. The importance of dollars has if anything been highlighted in 2020 exactly because its supply can be expanded by the fed when the world demands it. Adam Tooze has a wonderful piece on this topic https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/15/rise-fall-united-states....

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

#528

Post by sethd »

Maybe he's realized that robotaxis as a justification for the company's valuation [1] is not going to work out as planned. Now he's decided to buy Bitcoin (from proceeds of newly issued shares) and pump that instead.

[1] - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/27/elon-musk-explains-how-self-...

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

#530

Post by pontifier »

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…

You make a very good point. Having your investment money separate from operating funds is a key to having continually growing investments.

Money from the sale of an asset should only be used to buy other assets until you reach your personal wealth target.

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