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Comment by bedobi | Hacker News Reader

For that very reason, most businesses who accept bitcoin and other crypto (including Tesla, probably) don't actually keep the crypto, they immediately convert to traditional currency.

On the other hand, Tesla is unique in that it literally went out and bought bitcoin to just sit on it, which is incredibly dumb.

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There is nothing dumb about what Musk and Tesla did, in fact it was for self gain.

Look at the price when Tesla announced they bought bitcoin worth about a billion dollars. Even after the current fall, the price now is way higher than back then.

Just the way Musk has been able to manipulate the whole market after investing his? and Tesla's money is just extraordinary.

It was a strategic investment which has reaped money like anything in such a short span and they even used part of it to generate a positive component to their balance sheet in last quarter.

Honestly, when is the guy going to get charged by the SEC for market manipulation? It is fairly obvious he knows what he is doing with the crypto market and making a good chunk of change on it through his social media influence. But he also does it with Tesla (I know he got charged that one time but he's been a repeat offender).

Bitcoin is not a security nor a protected commodity market, so does the SEC even have jurisdiction?

McAfee was arrested for pumping crypto, but he was lying about his ownership and gave pretty specific forward looking claims. I don't believe he's been convicted yet.

Bitcoin is regulated in the US under both the Commodities Futures Commission and the Securities Exchange Commission. These tend to be fairly narrow rules about contracts for arbitrage, know your customer rules, etc. I have no idea if they have authority over pump-and-dumps

It's not illegal to buy a stock and tell people you bought it. There are entire businesses whose model is "make an investment, and then tell other people why you made it hoping they will make the same one". This isn't criminal, it's good business practice.

The thing he got in trouble for with Tesla was for lying about about a takeover offer, which is criminal, basically because it's a type of fraud. This isn't that.

Not a lawyer, not legal advice, etc.

It sure is illegal to say "the stock of the company that I'm the CEO of is too high."

I fear the US government might allow Elon Musk get away with anything, as long as he keeps launching satellites for the military.

BTC is not under SEC ( or even any) regulation for pump and dump schemes.

And now that its down, they're probably buying more.

They can get 5-10B in it, then Elon can pump it up more.

A month later I'm sure Elon will be talking about how he sold solar roofs and batteries to miners and is again accepting BTC and Doge.

Or maybe he just adds ASICS to the gigs factories to get a certain level of control over the mining economy.

They made more money doing that than selling cars.

Tesla publicly stated when they started accepting bitcoin that they would hold onto it as cryptocurrency, not sell it.

It's not dumb, all mayor central banks of the planet have printed 50% of GDP on their currencies including the dollar to deal with the pandemic. That means that you risk losing 50% of the value of your cash, so you invest it and you diversify to protect yourself, but because everybody with money is doing exactly that, you have massive asset bubbles that also risk your money, so its hard to find something to invest in.

Elon took a relative small bet by been the first mayor company to buy massive amounts of crypto and so far he has made bank. Only the future will tell if it was a good move in the long run.

Elon didn’t take a bet.

Bitcoin and crypto is basically a gamble. But what Musk and Tesla did wasn’t a gamble.

What they did was to effectively monetize Musk’s cult like following and his well earned reputation. They knew with the greatest certainty that the news of Tesla/Musk supporting crypto would lift crypto, so they managed to make money off it.

Those units don't even make sense.

New money as a percentage of GDP?

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