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Comment by nly | Hacker News Reader

Dec 2020 - Raises $5bn from investors

Jan 2021 - Spends 30% of raised money to buy Bitcoin

What value are Tesla adding here? Those investors could have just put 70% in to Tesla and 30% in to Bitcoin directly.

Arguably, the only positive here (for BTC and TSLA holders) is short term, and it's that Tesla are associating their brand with Bitcoin to whip up froth.

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Michael Saylor raised $900m in debt to buy bitcoin. It's like a free option call on bitcoin and is rather ingenious. If bitcoin spikes, you convert you debt into stock. If bitcoin falls, you still got your debt.

or it is a hedge against a market downturn as gold is "not cool" to buy from Tesla and cash should be invested if not used.

Bitcoin dropped 55% in March 2020 vs S&P500 dropping 35%. You'd lose more with this hedge than without.

Tesla dropped even more (180->72) and since then it is hyped even more even so it still doesn't make profit from it's core business.

And since then lot of people hyped the bitcoin.

1. It helps to have significant holdings if you plan to use the currency. 2. Tesla buying btc might conceivably move the price more and result in higher overall profits than the investors holding it directly. 3. A lot of companies make investments that in theory the shareholders could've done on their own.

Why is (1) true?

Presumably Tesla could start trading covered Bitcoin options to provide some stability to the market/their car prices.

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