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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

#701

Post by FabHK »

kortilla wrote: post #654
afavour wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That has very little to do with currency and everything to do with you not wanting to pay taxes. You may think that COVID response has been a catastrophic waste of money but if you'd lost your job would you have claimed the increased unemployment benefits? I suspect the…

> That has very little to do with currency and everything to do with you not wanting to pay taxes. Debasing a currency is not a normal tax. Currency debasement is extremely regressive. - The poorer someone is, the more of their assets are likely to just be some cash in the bank. - it is a permanent loss of quality of life for people on fixed incomes. - it doesn’t exempt people a normal tax code does (low income, blin…

> extremely regressive

Wouldn't call it extremely regressive.

> The poorer someone is, the more of their assets are likely to just be some cash in the bank.

The poor generally have less cash in the bank than the rich.

> - it is a permanent loss of quality of life for people on fixed incomes.

Those living of fixed incomes are rarely the poorest, either. Pensions in many countries are tied to inflation.

> This is the justification for nearly every government action.

Yes, and in many many cases, that justification is entirely justified. Where it isn't, the problem typically is bad government, not government.

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

#702

Post by ForHackernews »

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…

Western Union has made this possible for >50 years now.

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

#703

Post by byerobh »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #650
mrb wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not claiming that a low-latency, no-borders, truly international digital currency is a bad thing. The main issue with Bitcoin is a complete lack of oversight. As a currency it's dreadful, suffering from tens of thousands of percent in deflation (= value increased relative to the cost of goods). As a trade product it's terrible, suffering from a lack of oversight from e.g. the SEC, opening it up to price manipulat…

Lack of oversight is the main feature, it only scares old women (not even all of them, who would have guessed but my grandma asked about btc in a call a year ago.) and why is deflation bad?

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

#704

Post by gbersac »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #590
mrb wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There’s utility in Bitcoin but also massive scaling problems that haven’t been tackled yet. It has long term potential, but you have to separate that from the asset bubble that’s inflating everything these days. If you don’t see the parallels between bitcoin’s price and Tesla’s stock price you haven’t been paying attention to what’s happening in the economy. Hope this illustrates that Tesla’s commitment to clean ener…

The bitcoin lightning network address this issue. It already works, adoption is slowly increasing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network

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

#705

Post by loceng »

usehackernews wrote: post #700
loceng wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not see the pitfalls of the MLM structure of Bitcoin, along with the "army of HODLers" who are financially incentivized to speak positively and promote Bitcoin? Consensus through profit, financial incentive, is lazy - and arguably greedy - vs. doing the actual work of building real trust, and aligning people through real trust and relationship, community building; there is an argument that Bitcoin is required…

Your naivety of bitcoin use cases is very stuck in the Silicon Valley perspective. Not everyone has ways to store their money, earn interest on money, and receive loan opportunities. Bitcoins accessibility to people without banks is an extremely valuable asset to the world. This is at least 30% of the world population.

Do you realize you didn't counter any of my arguments, along with assuming I'm naive on the topic?

Perhaps you [and everyone else] should also be required to divulge if you/they have financial interest in Bitcoin whenever communicating about it.

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

#706

Post by pelliphant »

sireat wrote: post #656
pelliphant wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the positive sides of "Evading capital controls"? Also, does POS here mean "piece of shit"?

Well, if the government is truly repressive evading capital controls can be considered a good thing. I am still convinced that most people willingly holding Tether are trying to avoid paying taxes and skirt KYC. That is the only sane explanation for this insanity.

That's a fair point.

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

#707

Post by higerordermap »

whitepaint wrote: post #217
higerordermap wrote: post #194

Aside from all environment and ethical concerns, can someone elaborate how bitcoin & other crypto affects global economy and especially wealth equality? Since bitcoin transactions are anonymous, what will happen to taxes?

It's not anonymous. Very far from it actually. Let's say you buy BTC on some exchange platform and then you buy something illegal with it from some FBI honeypot. FBI can trace where you get those bitcoins and then they can go to the exchange platform with a warrant (probably they don't need it nowadays) to extract your real identity.

But again what's the effect on taxation?

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

#708

Post by usehackernews »

bearjaws wrote: post #547
sixQuarks wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me explain bitcoin in a way that hackers will understand. Bitcoin is javascript. Hackers don't like javascript. It's got a lot of terrible quirks. There are so many languages better than javascript. But that doesn't matter. Javascript is ubiquitous, and you can't avoid it. Bitcoin is the same. Either you accept it as the way things are and profit from it, or you keep pounding your head against the wall.

Yeah but Javascript can actually be used to create a blockchain or any number of applications. I bet SpaceX could land a Falcon-9 with Javascript if they wanted nightmare difficulty. Bitcoin's main purpose for everyone I know is to buy drugs and treat as an 'investment'.

Bitcoin is offering the 30%+ of the worlds population that is unbanked an opportunity to do so. Bitcoin is providing those living in a poor economy a route to economic alternatives.

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

#709

Post by byerobh »

GizmoSwan wrote: post #612
mrb wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To an unbanked! person in Los Angeles? In a black market? It is taxable in your hand as well as theirs. So any tax avoidance agenda makes the trade illegal.

Lol and who will punish it? Love this thing, might be the thing that saves the world from collectivists.

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

#710

Post by eli »

sixQuarks wrote: post #637
eli wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least you can build useful things out of gold

a statement like this is exactly why people still don't understand the value of Bitcoin. The usefulness of a store of value has no relation to its actual value. The value comes from the network effect of others also agreeing that it has value. What usefulness does a $100 million painting have?

How is there a network effect if people aren't using Bitcoin to make or receive payments? Bitcoin is no more useful to me if my friend uses it versus a stranger. "Meme effect" is more like it -- the more hype there is, the better it is for anyone holding coins. The value comes from convincing enough new people to keep buying in. It's like a ponzi scheme in that respect.

I don't think $100 million paintings are a good store of value or medium of exchange either. But again: at least many of them are nice to look at.

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