Tesla stops car purchases with Bitcoin

[just_Alice]

The real reason behind the sudden drop in price?

Guess what? Yesterday Tesla announced that the company will no longer accept car purchases with Bitcoin.
Who's surprised?

But it's not this fact, that pisses me off. Businessmen buy Bitcoin, sell Bitcoin, fine, do whatever you want with it, but the most annoying thing about this is how he still wants to seem all warm and fuzzy.

Elon Musk explained this decision on Twitter, stating that the company's concern is with the ecological aspect of Bitcoin mining and transactions:

Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.

Like hell you are! Didn't know about that fact when made a purchase worth $1.5B?

Concerns about bitcoin's energy demands have been around since the very beginning, with crypto pioneer Hal Finney tweeting about potential future CO2 emissions on 27 January 2009 – just two weeks after receiving the first ever bitcoin transaction from the cryptocurrency's pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/bitcoin-bad-environment-mining-cryptocurrency-b1846773.html

And this, in fact, is a total bs, because of all currencies cryptocurrencies are considered to be rather eco-friendly as compared to the fiat system. Why? Because paper money production and running banks...surprise-surprise - require huge energy consumption.

The estimated global production costs of paper currency in 2014 were 5 terawatts per year and 10 billion liters of water. While the banking system alone is even consuming more energy than the Bitcoin network, bankings energy costs are calculated around 100 terawatts per year. This is almost double that of Bitcoin. Indeed, banks need to run a lot of servers, branches and ATMs to keep their system accessible to the public.

Source: https://www.ledger.com/energy-consumption-crypto-vs-fiat

Your thoughts on this? Are cryptocurrencies, and, in particular, Bitcoin, that harming to the environment when compared to cash? Or is this just an excuse for screwing people over?

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[Lorence.xD]

I think that it was just a suspension so technically they are still going to back at it anytime soon. That's pretty influential to have the prices drop because of their suspension though but I think that this is just a temporary price drop since Tesla didn't sold their bitcoins.

[Charles-Tim]

Bitcoin does not depend on Tesla or Elon, we should know that. Only what will happen will be just temporary just as Lorence.xD commented. Bitcoin does not depend on anyone.

[bryant.coleman]

Elon Musk is moving in the same direction as that of Mark Zuckerberg. He seems to have realized that he can't manipulate Bitcoin, like the way he is currently doing with Dogecoin. The excuse that energy usage is too high for Bitcoin is to cover this fact. He either wants to rollout his own coin, or want some shitcoin such as Doge to replace Bitcoin. We have survived despite constant attacks from these people for 12 years. And this time also, the outcome will be the same. For Bitcoin, the loss of support from Elon may be a temporary setback. But in the long term, it will do no harm.

[paxmao]

I think that our strategy and buys of bitcoin should be absolutely agnostics on regards to whatever Tesla or Elon does or say. the use case itself is very limited to buy a car and it does not offer value to 90% of bitcoin users. It is a community effort to ignore those who intend to use the ecosystem for thing that are completely outside the spirit and practice of the bitcoin and crypto community. It is legit to ear money with crypto, but not at the cost of manipulating the market. I am so surprised the SEC is not already acting on this guy that I am suspicious of their motives.

[Botnake]

I believe what they say is different from what they have in mind.

This is a business interest, Elon Musk knows how big his influence is in the market, so he will take advantage on that.
We are a billion market, and he has proven he can make a lot of money by just shilling DOGE, so there must be a deeper reason on this announcement and something that will serve their personal interest.

[Wexnident]

Ok, I knew about Tesla announcing the news but didn't know why, kinda disappointed that I know now. Of all the reasons he needed to say, he just had to say about the non-existent issue of Bitcoin miners using up a lot of energy. It'd probably be better if they just said that they wanted to exit the market since they've had enough, I'll take that.

Still, the drop should only be temporary, we all know how Elon affects the market after all, but his hands mostly touch upon DOGE and not Bitcoin. Wait for a few days maybe, and it'd go back up.

Like hell you are! Didn't know about that fact when made a purchase worth $1.5B?

Facts right here lmao

[Mauser]

Your thoughts on this? Are cryptocurrencies, and, in particular, Bitcoin, that harming to the environment when compared to cash? Or is this just an excuse for screwing people over?

I don't feel like that crypto currencies are harming the environment more than any traditional FIAT currency. We need to consider so many factors when comparing FIAT to crypt currency. Printing money and minting coins requires a lot of resources and energy, the same goes for running a lot of different banking offices across the country. Delivering money to the ATMs also consumes a lot of fuel. So if we consider all these factors than traditional money requires much more energy than cryptos. I don't like that Elon Musks buys a lot of Bitcoins, hypes them on Twitter just to make a good profit and now gets out of the market.

[macson]

Bitcoin does not depend on Tesla or Elon, we should know that. Only what will happen will be just temporary just as Lorence.xD commented. Bitcoin does not depend on anyone.

Bitcoin depends on those who still believe in it and keep hold it.  The market crash this time only happened because some "weak hands" sold their Bitcoin on fears the price would continue to fall, fortunately there are many Bitcoin hodlers who don't care about news like this. ^{(only stupid people who sell their Bitcoin because news of Tesla is not accepting Bitcoin payments anymore "lol")}

[snipie]

I expected this to happen since I read a sort of appeal from some activists calling off Musk as an hypocrite for adopting bitcoin and linking it to global warming while he is pushing for a greenish energy world.
Nothing is hazardous or spontaneous with Musk, he ride well the wave and will most likely continue doing it. Next step is Doge before switching to a POS coin imo.

[CoinComputer]

The whole energy thing is promoting FUD

If you're into mining, you want to have lowest costs, highest revenue which means you will gravitate towards cheap/zero renewables or energy that currently can't/isn't being used by anything else. ASICs will also get more energy efficient and over time we'll reach an equilibrium based on mining reward, bitcoin value and operational costs. If people can't present a balanced argument I can't take them seriously. Presenting bitcoin's energy usage without comparing to banking, metals production, other is disingenuous and just pushing a narrative.  When people get censored, have their money stolen or debased, they'll see Bitcoin in a different light.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.

Like hell you are! Didn't know about that fact when made a purchase worth $1.5B?

Yeah, that makes absolutely no sense as a rationale behind Tesla no longer accepting bitcoin.  No sense whatsoever--and you're absolutely right, Musk ought to have known all of the facts behind how bitcoin is mined and so forth; he's by no means a stupid person.  The weird thing is the timing behind the buying and selling of bitcoin by Tesla.  It almost seems like they didn't think it through at all, unless they were just looking to make a short-term profit (and I hate to say it, but they could be guilty of manipulating the market in doing so).

I also agree that this bone-headed decision could be responsible for bitcoin's decline in the last few days.  Makes me wonder how the other corporations that purchased bitcoin feel about this, and perhaps what they might do.  Hopefully Tesla doesn't induce companies like MicroStrategy, Square, Marathon Digital, and others to sell.  Just imagine if that were to happen.  Bitcoin would probably be under $10k in no time.

[mu_enrico]

I smell market manipulation and Elon Musk has pranked all of us.
People should stop paying attention to his (and his company) action, just like what we did with McAfee.

I think that our strategy and buys of bitcoin should be absolutely agnostics on regards to whatever Tesla or Elon does or say. the use case itself is very limited to buy a car and it does not offer value to 90% of bitcoin users. It is a community effort to ignore those who intend to use the ecosystem for thing that are completely outside the spirit and practice of the bitcoin and crypto community. It is legit to ear money with crypto, but not at the cost of manipulating the market. I am so surprised the SEC is not already acting on this guy that I am suspicious of their motives.

True, BTC price should be independent of Musk and the future manipulators. SEC has fined Musk once, and I wouldn't be surprised if his antics lately will cause another fine.

[finaleshot2016]

I'm really disappointed with what Elon Musk did but yeah, Bitcoin is still bitcoin, we should buy it because bitcoin has the potential not because of other 3rd parties who are promoting Bitcoin. Since Tesla is an environmentally conscious organization (as shown by their products), I believe it was the correct decision to discontinue the BTC payment method if they were aware of Bitcoin's energy consumption issues. It could tarnish their image as a massive corporation.

But still, not a good way of manipulating the market, so much hate.

[stompix]

Yeah, that makes absolutely no sense as a rationale behind Tesla no longer accepting bitcoin.  No sense whatsoever--and you're absolutely right, Musk ought to have known all of the facts behind how bitcoin is mined and so forth; he's by no means a stupid person.  

Rationale..
We're talking about the guy who after getting finned by the SEC didn't spend too much trolling quietly indoors and came back to Twitter with this:



Now we're having the same reactions a tesla's share owners in that topic, "Dude, what the f* is wrong with you?"   
But there is nothing wrong with Musk, it's not a bug it's a feature!!! He simply is this kind of person, and everyone seeing his first comments about crypto years ago when he was trolling with Doge should have been a little cautious on how this guy does things. He is not the usual WS investor, he is sometimes even more dislikeable than Warren, at least that guy is simply stating his beliefs, Musk likes to cover everything in a fog of half-truth half lies.

The moment Tesla published their filling showing they have bought Bitcoin I tough that at least temporarily he will stop with the non-sense as his usual attitude will get him in trouble with the SEC but nope, it didn't work. Right now with all this BTC drama, he will get away even without the slap on the wrist but it come a day when his trolling will lead him into serious troubles.

[Charles-Tim]

I also agree that this bone-headed decision could be responsible for bitcoin's decline in the last few days.  Makes me wonder how the other corporations that purchased bitcoin feel about this, and perhaps what they might do.  Hopefully Tesla doesn't induce companies like MicroStrategy, Square, Marathon Digital, and others to sell.  Just imagine if that were to happen.  Bitcoin would probably be under $10k in no time.

That would be his strategic plan, if Bitcoin market has not matured enough, and if institutional whales have not yet invested in bitcoin, the whole market (Bitcoin and altcoins) would have crashed, likely less than $10000 bitcoin price will be possible. But, this did not happen, the market has even slightly grown back above $50000.

I do not know the plan of Elon musk exactly, but it is definitely a manipulating plan, I am thinking he is just try to make sure bitcoin market should crash so that he will be able to use the meme thing to increase the market value of Doge, by also making Tesla to be accepting Doge as payment.

I am wondering someone who knows about Bitcoin mining to have just such decision, he is definitely after something.

[bittick]

I failed seeing what's the big deal with this news. see it's just one merchant stops accepting bitcoin and nothing more, their product also isn't that great of importance for most of us who relatively doesn't have that much of money to buy some luxury car and prefer to further invest our money anyway. people are truly overreacting over this news and if doge is what turns out to be what elon prefer as the more greener crypto that means he's just trying to shill his shitcoin again and probably to make profit out of it.

come on people, i thought bitcoin is bigger than just a merchant acceptance as payment method.

[teosanru]

Elon Musk and his fairy tales. Everyone on the planets even the very less educated and privilege would know that bitcoin mining would consume electricity. Moreover, it has even been debated many times that due to major bitcoin mining taking place in Developed nations where more renewable sources of energy are used bitcoin doesn't really use that much energy. But one day CEO of TESLA waking up and realizing that oh no we need to stop accepting payments in bitcoin is not a story I am going to buy. It was a pure intentional price manipulation done by him. Even though the market looked bearish before the news. This news gave it the necessary fuel to go down. I believe he was just trying out whether he has the power to influence bitcoin price too or his powers are just limited to DOGE. Now he has realized he can move BTC too. He will surely do many more price manipulations.

[arallmuus]

Your thoughts on this? Are cryptocurrencies, and, in particular, Bitcoin, that harming to the environment when compared to cash? Or is this just an excuse for screwing people over?

It wasnt really surprising. I've always thought that Elon / Tesla's love story with crypto is pretty much a one night stand instead of an everlasting love life. Tesla is even making alot more revenue from selling just 10% of their bitcoin holding compared with selling their cars for 1 year

Also regarding his concerns about energy issue, I quoted this from https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56844813

Tesla chief Elon Musk has agreed with Twitter boss Jack Dorsey, who has said that bitcoin "incentivises" renewable energy, despite experts warning otherwise.

The cyrptocurrency's carbon footprint is as large of some of the world's biggest cities, studies suggest.

But Mr Dorsey claims that could change if bitcoin miners worked hand-in-hand with renewable energy firms.

Pretty amusing huh. He agreed with this statement and yet now he claimed otherwise while in fact probably an average of half large bitcoin mining operation uses renewable energy nowadays

Right now with all this BTC drama, he will get away even without the slap on the wrist but it come a day when his trolling will lead him into serious troubles.

I think he can get away with it. This guy has no chill and treat almost everything as a joke

[hugeblack]

I thought that they would stop dealing with it at some point, but I did not expect this to happen so quickly. Less than two months have been required for a company to make a decision and to withdraw from it is considered an unconventional matter.
Let's see what other cryptocurrencies they will support but at least not selling them is considered positive.