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Comment by dyslexit | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure how this can be broken down any more clearly. The customer is always losing money when they ask for a refund if they pay for the Tesla with BTC unless the price of BTC is exactly the same as it was when the purchase is made. Tesla chooses whether it pays the customer back in BTC or USD. It's pretty clear language. There's nothing that tptacek said that is wrong.

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The "Bitcoin Price" it is referring to is the amount of BTC paid for the car, not it's value in USD from my understanding. In other words that won't change. If they refund you in BTC you'll get the same amount of BTC back as you paid. That is what contradicts tptacek.

Of course, they could choose to pay you in USD at which point it may be worth less BTC. But you're still receiving back the full dollar amount of the car that you chose to buy. So it would be the same as converting your BTC to cash at the time of car purchase instead of buying a car. There is nothing nefarious or deceptive going on here by Tesla.

The contract literally says, above the language we're talking about, that if they choose to refund you in Bitcoin, the Bitcoin they refund you may be worth less in USD than the value of the car. If you pay 2 BTC for a Tesla, you will get 2 BTC back, even if (probably especially if) BTC plummets to $1/BTC.

The other direction is not true: if BTC skyrockets up to $100k/BTC before you ask for a refund, you're getting $50k/USD back.

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