[HN Gopher] Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin
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Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin
Author : seigando
Score : 85 points
Date : 2021-05-12 22:13 UTC (47 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Hah! Many layers of hypocrisy here, heh, but at least this is a
| better place to end p. I hope this triggers a sell off.
| adamhearn wrote:
| Why do you hope for a sell off?
| paulpauper wrote:
| BTC still dropping even 30 minutes after news. so much for that
| EMH assumption of all public info being digested by market
| instantly
| valine wrote:
| Finally, I've been waiting for the crypto bust. GPUs have been
| out of stock since last November.
| prox wrote:
| Time for Crypto to go away for a while as it reinvents
| itself. In it's current iteration it's speculative, the only
| source from which its derives its value, which is shakey at
| best, and solves absolutely nothing atm.
| bitcoinmonger wrote:
| Has anyone considered the environmental impact of electric
| vehicles?
|
| The electricity is generated in the most part by fossil fuels, so
| how are they in any way a green alternative?
| rawtxapp wrote:
| This is pretty interesting, either they did a proper research
| before putting 1.5B$ into it, in which case they would already be
| aware of the energy consumption, in which case, why announce this
| now? Or they put _that_ much money without proper research which
| looks pretty bad for Tesla in my opinion.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Yeah, I think that is just the excuse, not the actual reason.
| How could he not know about this already?
| lolthishuman wrote:
| There's more than those two you know...
| shiado wrote:
| Looks like my knife catch orders might get triggered tonight lmao
| thanks Elon.
| minimaxir wrote:
| A large number of people were making comments about the
| environmental concerns of crypto the _instant_ Tesla announced
| they were buying into Bitcoin. What changed?
|
| It's really hard to argue Tesla's surprise here. (Elon Musk
| actually replied to Jack Dorsey saying "True" in response to his
| argument that Bitcoin is good for renewable energy:
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1385107878055317509 )
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Jack Dorsey saying that 'bitcoin incentivizes renewables' is
| the modern monetary theory of green energy. Gonna leave the
| fridge door open, the air conditioning on and drive my EV with
| the breaks engaged to accelerate the green revolution
| eli wrote:
| That's deeply unfair to MMT. Also didn't musk reply to jack
| endorsing that opinion?
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Why would Musk saying anything be a confirmation? He has a
| history of lying and misrepresenting.
|
| https://www.elonmusk.today/
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| > A large number of people were making comments about the
| environmental concerns of crypto the instant Tesla announced
| they were buying into Bitcoin. What changed?
|
| Elon Musk showed him self to be either ignorant or a liar about
| the Green nature of Bitcoin.
|
| Here's a repudiation of the idea that Bitcoin is Green:
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/0448b44d-1d78-48f8-8ca8-6edae7976...
| ffggvv wrote:
| they bought in Q4, sold 1/4 of it in Q1, which allowed them to
| have a profit that quarter since they lose money on selling
| cars. Now china car sales are down this quarter and they
| realize they need to cash out completely.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| "Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin..." from the tweet.
| prostoalex wrote:
| They sold 10% of their holdings throughout Q1
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-sold-
| bitcoin-q1-proceed...
| ffggvv wrote:
| thats what he said before but magically sold some in q1.
| wonder how much he dumped before this statement.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Maybe Elon Musk dumped his coin, but Tesla is a public
| company. Tesla almost certainly didn't dump its coin
| without public notice.
| vernie wrote:
| See tweets about self-driving capabilities.
| Geee wrote:
| I hope he realizes that there aren't any cryptocurrencies that
| don't use energy & are properly decentralized.
| intotheabyss wrote:
| Except of course for the number 2 crypto by mcap which is
| months away from proof of stake.
| cmckn wrote:
| > months away
|
| This is optimistic, to say the least. I think proof of stake
| is a great idea, and is headed in a great direction; but if
| you take a look at any of the client implementations (Prysm
| being the most popular), it's not exactly rock-solid software
| that I would stake $135,000 on.
| ObserverNeutral wrote:
| This guy is the most impulsive human, maybe ever.
|
| He'd sell his Futurama mom for a quick stock pump.
| gregoriol wrote:
| So after his statement on Dogecoin on SNL a few days ago, Muskito
| is now officially into manupilating crypto prices?
| felixbraun wrote:
| So when the dusk settles, this whole BTC and DOGE drama was
| intended as an indirect lesson to not short TSLA and with that
| keep their stock in range where it is completely removed from
| fundamentals for just a little bit longer?
| Andys wrote:
| Strong suspicion Elon is buying more BTC now that the price is
| dropping.
| hristov wrote:
| So multiple people have noted that the environmental concerns
| were exactly the same and very well known when Tesla originally
| started taking bitcoin as payment.
|
| So what changed? Well I think the biggest notable difference
| between then and now is then bitcoin seemed to be going only up.
| Now it seems to be going down. When bitcoin continues to steadily
| go down, it is a significant concern because Tesla will have to
| take losses on the cars it sells and will have reduced gross
| margins, which will result in their stock price tanking.
|
| Musk smartly decided he did not want to risk his half a trillion
| dollar company on random bitcoin fluctuations. It is probably the
| right decision (although certainly covered up with false
| reasoning) but he should have never reached this stage. Tesla
| should have never taken bitcoin without provisions for
| automatically converting it into one of the currencies it pays
| its costs in.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| That doesn't make sense, they are still holding a very large
| amount of it, why would they put this out and decrease the
| value of their own holdings?
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Isn't it possible they're dumping the rest of their holdings?
| dalbasal wrote:
| All it means is that they're effectively "holding bitcoin."
| They're doing that anyway. It's not really different from
| holding forex, stocks or any other risky asset.
| usaphp wrote:
| What percent of Tesla customers are buying their cars with
| bitcoins? I doubt it's more than 1 out of 100, I think it was
| just a publicity stunt both times, media talked about Tesla
| when they started accepting them and will talk about them again
| when they decided to stop it.
| dmarcos wrote:
| This has changed:
|
| "Private-equity firm revives zombie fossil-fuel power plant to
| mine bitcoin"
|
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/private-equity-f...
| myth_buster wrote:
| Now it seems to be going down. When bitcoin continues to
| steadily go down, it is a significant concern because Tesla
| will have to take losses on the cars it sells and will have
| reduced gross margins, which will result in their stock price
| tanking.
|
| Doesn't compute. If Euro/USD goes down by few basis points
| would one stop selling cars priced in euro?
|
| They can always price cars based on BTC's price and liquidate
| it to fiat or cryptocurrency of their choice.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's a well known fact that Bitcoins are mined through renewable
| clean energy when over $60K and dirty coal dug by newborn baby
| labor when under $55K, therefore Musk did the right thing.
|
| Cynicism aside, I was very curious if Musk can somehow push the
| crypto coins to be used as a currency. I guess that failed?
|
| AFAIK manufacturing is a relatively low margin business that is
| sensible to price and supply fluctuations so it needs supply
| chain contracts for months if not years ahead which means using
| it as a currency that is not quickly converted to fiat must be
| like a huge challenge that only a financial machine building
| genius like Musk can solve.
|
| Is there a data on how many cars were sold through BTC?
| aazaa wrote:
| > Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin.
|
| The real reason is likely to be that few, if any, cars were
| bought with bitcoin.
|
| This has been a recurring theme throughout Bitcoin's history
| that's played out hundreds of times in more or less the same way.
| Merchants discover Bitcoin, and think it is a
| (VISA|PayPal|Checking|etc.) replacement. Then they try using it
| that way. They're shocked to find very low to non-existent
| transaction volume.
|
| When Bitcoin does work, it's in situations in which those making
| the payment have few other options. They're blocked from taking
| credit card payments or interacting with the banking system. It's
| easy to dismiss those use cases, but they're real.
|
| > ... we intend to use it when mining transitions to more
| sustainable energy.
|
| Makes no sense. Numerous articles document Bitcoin's energy
| sources, which are often hydroelectric due to its low cost.
|
| The part about other cryptocurrencies using less energy is pie in
| the sky reference to proof-of-stake. Its security model has yet
| to be proven on any network worth discussing. Those claiming
| otherwise are selling snake oil.
|
| All of this reveals a surprising lack of sophistication in the
| approach taken by both Tesla and Musk.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Tesla's engineering team received experienced in supporting
| Bitcoin for payments and treasury management. Tesla received
| quite a bit of PR for accepting Bitcoin. Selling Bitcoin also
| net Tesla a substantial ($101 million) profit. It is said Tesla
| does not have a marketing department, but it is marketing
| itself just fine.
| rasputnik6502 wrote:
| Yep someone has exchanged his Muskcoin into a big pile of real
| money. Not inrerested obviously in reverse direction of exchange
| henvic wrote:
| I posted this article Cryptocurrency Tulipmania: Bitcoin is a
| shitcoin monday about how Bitcoin is a shitcoin for many reasons,
| especially because proof-of-work sucks. I'm glad to see it being
| abandoned by Tesla!
|
| https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/
| paulpauper wrote:
| Musk would make a good politician. He mastered the art of the
| flip flop. This is why taking financial advice from twitter is
| generally a bad idea.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| also taking crypto gambling advice from one of the worlds
| richest people when you have 10k in the bank might not be a
| good idea either
| lolthishuman wrote:
| What's the flip flop? The reasoning is sound and it's
| technically based on new data and key decisions.
| newacct583 wrote:
| Is it a flip flop or did he just... change his mind? I mean,
| the guy has a long history of tweet-first-think-later. It seems
| not unreasonable to me that he got suddenly and violently into
| cryptocoins, did the same thing people here do every week when
| they learn about it for the first time, and then (being a
| billionaire) had trusted folks come to him to carefully explain
| all the externalities and his generally-strong-if-highly-
| distractable analytical mind made a different decision with
| better evidence.
|
| I mean... I'm not saying Tesla's weird daliance with and then
| rejection of Bitcoin is particularly rational. I'm just saying
| it doesn't seem insincere.
| akdor1154 wrote:
| More that flip flops - the guy has the impulse control and
| general behaviour of someone afflicated with mania.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| How on earth do you secure that Bitcoin has been mined with
| sustainable energy?! Makes no sense. Did Elon Musk actually write
| this and why is it in a jpg image?
| prostoalex wrote:
| Isn't mining highly concentrated?
| paulpauper wrote:
| cuz of the character limit . elon and tesla bypass the usual PR
| firms and just post to twitter
| throwaway4good wrote:
| This is short enough for a multi tweet tweet which would be
| the natural thing if it was actually Elon who wrote it.
|
| He doesn't strike me as the sort of the guy who would put his
| statement inside an image and I would expect him to
| understand enough about Bitcoin to know that there is no way
| to guarantee it being mined "sustainably".
| eli wrote:
| You think maybe greenpeace had him locked in a room?
| throwaway4good wrote:
| No. Some one else wrote that statement he posted ... and
| it was carefully vetted with pr and legal.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| Pretty sure this one has been through both PR and legal.
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