Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by superbcarrot | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

superbcarrot

Tesla carrying Bitcoin has two main motivations:

- to make money

- for the memes

Anyone trying to justify it with the merit of the technology is either delusional or trying to sell you something.

View on HN

Exactly. This is a Musk obsession project sold to the finance team on the potential to make money.

Feels very much like what happened with Overstock a few years ago with their CEO promoting it, deciding that they'd accept it, etc. Now he's gone full-nut, even more than Musk.

TSLA has more cash than they can efficiently spend at this time. Putting it in diversified liquid asset classes hedges against the fed printing trillions of dollars of the next 3-5 years and destroying 50% of the value of that cash.

> destroying 50% of the value of that cash

If this scenario were to actually play out, a huge number of people 'hodling' bitcoin will cash out. I guarantee it. I wonder what it will be worth after that sell-off surge?

I'm one of these holders who hold to avoid cash depreciation, I don't plan on ever selling a single satoshi. Now you might ask, what's the point then, are you not gonna spend it at all? With many new defi projects, I can unlock my Bitcoin's value and use it without ever selling it.

Many holders have similar ideological beliefs, Michael Saylor also said he doesn't plan on selling any and that he would just borrow against it if he needed the cash.

This is similar to what bankrupted the Enron execs. When told to diversify their holdings from Enron stock, instead of selling the stock and buying other stocks/etc, they borrowed against their Enron stock and used that to invest.

When the stock came down it snowballed, they hit limits where they had to settle-up their loans, but to do that they had to sell large amounts of Enron stock that then dropped the price further.

This is a dangerous game.

If you guarantee it, please sell me options calls on it.

Why would you cash out into a currency you just witnessed can be easily devalued??

It's called panic selling. Does anything about the past few months/years of general human activity lead you to believe that our species is any less vulnerable to fear & ignorance than in the past?

Why would you panic-sell the currency that was robust? That makes no sense. Not even from a "people are irrational" perspective.

To be able to buy things you need. You know, food, water, shelter. That kind of stuff. Not everyone buying bitcoin is doing so from some impenetrable fortress of diversified holdings and complete physical security.

I do not expect the distribution of vendors of essentials to be increasing their acceptance of bitcoin any time soon. In any kind of remotely significant overall crash - which most of us reading this are very likely to see in our lifetimes - it goes back to the barter system & whatever proxy is most stable at the time. Perhaps bitcoin could play a role here, but it remains to be seen how much. I would definitely expect most people owning it to sell it fairly early on in a major collapse. Whether that group collectively owns enough of it at such a point vs. institutional investors to affect the price downward is almost completely unknowable. Which seems like too much of a risk to me.

We have far better ways to establish trust now-- including within the wider cryptocurrency space. I expect the architects of the market(s) will consult knowledgeable engineers who provide them levers of control for multiple variables when opening up new trust systems. When considering these probabilities, in my opinion Bitcoin is clunky legacy tech and a ticking time bomb.

Would be really nice if they pushed some of that cash into improving QA/QC on their production lines.

Also to soak up all of that mining hardware -- oops, I mean the FSD ASICs -- and solar panels he has lying around :D

Also a perfect way to bribe someone in China

How? I don't get it?

it's hard to believe there are people trying to justify otherwise too

There's a third motivation other than the speculation on a value rise that "make money" implies (and which, if the BTC price keeps rising, may well turn out to be wise): get customers.

Let's be honest: most people from the early Bitcoin days, or even those who entered at 1k or bought the dip after the crash three years ago, who have enough Bitcoin for a Tesla would have to pay a lot of taxes if they converted it to dollars. Buy a Tesla with them? No way for the IRS to notice that unless they audit you.

Tesla is offering people with an interest in tax cheating essentially an easy way to turn the 2k investment of four or five years ago to a luxury vehicle.

> Buy a Tesla with them? No way for the IRS to notice that unless they audit you.

Or the IRS could ask Tesla for a list of everyone who bought Teslas with bitcoins and what their bitcoin addresses were.

Exactly. I can’t believe the number of people who think that BTC is some magic shield against the powers that be.

I would say the tax evasion is far from a guarantee. Like the other commenter said, IRS can and has asked companies for data on their customers using cryptocurrencies before. Like take Coinbase, for an example.

However, a lot of people suddenly made a pretty penny on bitcoin this year, so giving them an opportunity to buy their cars easily with it (let's just assume they are paying taxes on it), that alone could foster a lot of good will and make people want to support the company by buying Teslas. I've already started seeing threads on Reddit saying 'Should we replace the Lambo (it was a meme that when Bitcoin went to the moon everyone would buy Lamborghinis) with a Tesla?'

Unfortunately, when you sell or use Bitcoin to buy anything, you trigger capital gains tax on it.

I believe Tesla would be required to identify you and report all such sales (as they're >10,000$) to IRS i.e. not only IRS could ask, but it would be Tesla's responsibility to proactively report it as form 8300 for cash sales or something equivalent and ensure that your identity is verified, so instead of "no way for the IRS to notice that unless they audit you" this would immediately trigger an audit if you haven't reported your BTC investment profit as required.

Buy a Tesla with them? No way for the IRS to notice that unless they audit you.

That is in fact the easiest way for the IRS to notice, as crypto is only taxable when it is transacted. And bitcoin is a public ledger.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com