Pump and dump just for the heck of it?
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Why can’t this dude just shut up? That’s what people, including the SEC, want to know. But look, he just can’t. Apparently, no one can take his Twitter account away from Elon Musk, and Tesla isn’t putting it under adult supervision, as the SEC has suggested. So he was at it again today, responding to accusations by Magda Wierzycka, CEO of South African tech and financial services firm Sygnia, that he’d pumped up the price of Bitcoin by tweeting all manner of things, and then “sold a big part of his exposure at the peak.”
So yes. Musk acknowledged in his tweet today that Tesla had in fact dumped part of its holdings of Bitcoin, but he argued that it wasn’t a big part, that it had “only sold ~10%” of its Bitcoin holdings.
And he came up with a rationalization why Tesla had dumped 10% of its Bitcoin holdings: “to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market.”
That was a joke apparently. Over the past two months, the price of Bitcoin plunged from about $64,800 to around $33,000 at the low and now hovers at $39,000, after the current Musk-induced spike, with the plunge leaving a big-fat question market over his assertion that Bitcoin could be “liquidated easily without moving market.”
But Musk walks on water, and he can assert anything, no problem.
The second part of Musk’s tweet contained an effort to pump up the price of BTC by walking back his assertion in May that Tesla would no longer allow customers to pay for vehicles with Bitcoin because of the carbon footprint of Bitcoin mining, which was another one of his Bitcoin 180s. At the time, that statement had whacked the price of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin mining is of course the fiat-currency equivalent of “money printing.” But money printing has a tiny carbon footprint, because it needs just enough electricity to move credits by computer and the internet. You don’t need huge arrays of special mining rigs with special power supply and cooling equipment to print money.
So today he tried to walk back his carbon-foot print concern, by tweeting: “When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions.”
OK, we’re not going there. We’re not even getting into what this means, and how many years, if ever, it would take to get there. But it did pump up BTC instantly from around $35,000 to about $39,000. Musk speaks, BTC moves.
Folks apparently cherry-picked this second statement from his tweet, not the first one, to fire up the price of BTC.
“What we have seen with Bitcoin is price manipulation by one very powerful and influential individual,” said Wierzycka in the interview.
She doesn’t object when he manipulates up the price. The issue is when he manipulated down the price, which is apparently one of the seven deadly sins.
Musk was the Bitcoin hype community’s hero until he started going astray. Then he was vilified. You gotta give this dude some credit: He knows how to piss people off.
But it takes two to tango.
Musk is just mouthing off. He’s doing what millions of other folks are doing. But no one pays attention to them. I can say whatever I want to about Bitcoin, and it won’t move the market.
Musk – with Tesla able to put its billions of dollars to work that it raised from investors last year – is different. Folks cling to every one of his words. They have been for years with Tesla, all his now forgotten promises that made TSLA jump. Folks buy and sell based on what he says.
He moves markets because markets want to be moved by him. These folks are looking for a voice that would unite them for a brief moment which would allow them to trade all in one direction, and the now unified mass would drive BTC or TSLA or whatever further into the sky. That’s what everyone wants.
These folks want him to speak, and they are lapping up every syllable he says as long as it unites them. Most of the time, his words move prices up, not down.
And that was the tragedy in his Bitcoin escapades when his words – and actions, namely dumping 10% of Tesla’s Bitcoin holdings – helped pull the rug out from under Bitcoin.
If every market player just ignored what Musk says, none of his promises and assertions would be a problem. Pump-and-dump is not a problem when no one pays attention to you.
But these folks handed Musk a huge megaphone that everyone is eager to hear because prices jump when he speaks. But when he fails to do his duty in manipulating up the price, when he lapses and says something untoward that causes prices to plunge, these folks get really upset. Well, the solution is simple: stop paying attention to what Musk says. But markets are always looking for a messiah, and in Musk they had their guy, until suddenly they didn’t.
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‘But money printing has a tiny carbon footprint’
The reason it’s so easy to print money is why people are buying crypto. Money should always have a ‘high cost’ attached because if there’s very little then it’s not Money is it?
The reason Dollars have value is not because it costs anything to print them but because they’re backed by the full faith and credit of the US Gov. Translation: the US Military. So how much oil, electricity & lives does the Dollar really cost compared to Bitcoin?
Thomas Wolfe,
Bitcoin is not a currency. That has now been broadly acknowledged. You cannot even buy a Tesla with Bitcoin! It’s now considered just a “store of value.” One that hasn’t stored value all that well recently (where the heck is that leak?).
For 12 years anyone who bought BTC and held did extremely well storing and growing value. But somehow the last 3-4 months makes BTC junk? It’s volatile. But what else has performed as well over the last 10 years? Only TSLA comes to mind at 15000% increase. Hmmmm. :) beats vegas for fun and profit.
Bitcoin will return to its intrinsic value. Zero. Guaranteed. So let’s see how many lose all that value and hold it the entire way down.
Mike R,
Agreed. True for all crpto-currencies…in time.
Especially when the US$ and the Euro become an e-currency.
Bitcoin *is* Vegas, Duke.
“It’s volatile. But what else has performed as well over the last 10 years? Only TSLA comes to mind at 15000% increase.”
So, you bought (or better yet, mined) BTC ten years ago?
“For 12 years anyone who bought BTC and held did extremely well storing and growing value.”
Oh right, all 3 of them bought and held, thinking it was store of value.
i bet a lot more than three people bought and held. think about how many people bought a few dollars worth on a lark and either forgot a password and/or had a hard drive crap out on them.
there could be a significant part of the bitcoins in existence that are lost in the ether. how many of those are from the era where it took several thousand to get a “pizza.”
it’s like buried treasure. someday people will be going crazy trying to get at those forgotten bitcoins.
Haterz start owning some Bitcoin even a small amount. Don’t focus on price. The experience of transacting outside of this system is liberating. Try it and you too will want to grow your position in a store of value that can’t be canceled. It will grow and continue to attract people who want to opt out of the current Clickwork (pun intended) Orange madness. What’s the price of freedom? You don’t change Bitcoin, Bitcoin changes you. I’m disappointed that Elon is playing a game. Not worried though. Bought the dip and would buy again. Best inflation hedge ever. Talk to me in two years about BTC going to zero. BTC please : |
p coyle-
Interesting and likely accurate take….maybe an magic algorithm will unleash the treasure hunt…..the Holy Grail of Bitcoin, lost to the ages….
….well, decades….(not as poetic).
I haven’t read all the posts here, and perhaps this has been addressed before. We are missing the big picture. The US govt…and the world needs TESLA and that moron running it to maintain the stock in the stratosphere for markets to remain at this disgusting level. Correct me If I’m wrong, but doesn’t Tesla account for many of the gains in the indexes? Tesla goes down, and the lights go out. And here is the link to BitCON: They…the crooks running the markets, need BitCON as the safety valve so money doesn’t pour into gold and silver, and out of the market as well. What Elon is doing is not random nor on the fly. He isn’t brought to account, because No Musk, then no safety valve keeper. And thus my hatred for this *&^hole of a man who probably gets his marching orders from the globalists.
if musk gets his marching orders from the globalists, i have even less faith in the globalists than i used to.
@ p coyle: apart from the incessant tweeting, how is Musk himself not a globalist?
WTF IS a globalist? Other than a word use by Foxheads, et al, for scare purposes. Anyone got a list of names, or the name of their organization..their bylaws?…..maybe even a website?
I have a simple partial definition…..anyone worth over $20-50M “could” play at being a “globalist”, but I doubt there is a single organization (yet, I hope). Rather a lot of them.
For instance, the favorite globalist organization here is called the FED, but I think (hope) so far it is just one of many.
McDonald’s Chicken nuggets should be considered a “store of value”? “Only” $9.72 with tax for 10 tiny ground up chicken feet and other chicken matter nuggets today while visiting Austin. Was still hungry as it was mostly “Chicken batter” nuggets, so perhaps Bitcoin would be more filling and satisfying?
And thus why people are buying alternative to Fed fiat crypto…when a single chicken nugget can now be sold on the “dollar menu”…
Thanks J-Pow! Concurrently crushing the poor AND the middle class with stealth inflation taxation is dually impressive! I’m guessing that Dante’s fifth circle of hell has a special room reserved for ex-Feds…
In his (or her) original white paper, Satoshi Nakamoto intended Bitcoin to be used as medium of exchange. There’s no mention about using as “store of value”.
Currently, the Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto-currencies have become a speculative asset not unlike Google’s common stock or Tesla’s stock.
The bigger holders of crypto’s have a problem – while a crypto-exchange may say that their coins “worth” a gazzilion dollars, until they cash out, the value of their holding is actually zero. That amount, shown on the screen, is what the holders believe they’re entitled to, when they sell.
Now, in order to actually convert these cryptos to something widely acceptable (and, like it or not, that something are the fiat currencies issued by the states), they must find someone to whom to sell.
Finding a bigger fool in this case is not a problem; finding a bigger fool willing to buy bitcoin at their current price is – the only potential buyers with that kind of money are the traditional financial institutions. And, believe me, they’re no fools.
How is the dollar being backed by a government with a monopoly of force any different from any other nation, past or present?
To butcher a quote, if Bitcoin / crypto has been able to spring into existence, it is because it stood on the shoulders of giants that wouldn’t exist in any other theoretical macroeconomic system and which this post implicitly finds distasteful.
Yeah, sorry, Bitcoin is built upon human history as it is, not some magical realm of moral purity where every techie has clean hands.
> Bitcoin is built upon human history as it is
True – no qualms there
> not some magical realm of moral purity where every techie has clean hands
It isn’t as if the technological advancements of the US over the decades is somehow predicated on all the oil wars/lives that the dollar’s hegemony has depended upon for its existence.
A bit of misdirection there
I see the decentralized finance and other techie-led movements motivated in part by technologists who want to “eject” or operate outside institutional & regulatory systems that have dominion over them — and to create systems that they have dominion over (and put everyone else under).
Anarcho-capitalists, Libertarians, etc. People who have no business in crafting policy for the rest of us yet want society to run off their platforms to funnel money up to them and lock in monopolies in their favor.
Hey, what do you know, that’s Tesla’s strategy.
LK-well said. Moonshinin’ is, after all, moonshinin’, no matter the product or service (lookin’ @ YOU rideshare corps., among others-call it ‘disrupting’ and everything’s a-okay…). The public tends to drink deep until the gambling is discovered in the casino at which point the scramble for hand sanitizer ensues…
may we all find a better day.
The full faith is actually the faith of people who use the US Dollar, which is most of the people in the world, to a large degree in the black market. When the users lose faith in any money the value falls to zero and no amount of intimidation, military or persuasive, can save its value.
Try using almost any currency anywhere outside its home country to verify this.
Bitcoin is not money, it’s a derivative of money. Just the fact that Musk won’t accept it as payment for a Tesla tells you what he really thinks it’s worth. But tune in tomorrow for his thoughts; they can change overnight.
Musk and his Bitcoin nonsense, e.g. he’s for it if less electricity is used to create it is just silly: 90% of the possible Bitcoin in circulation has already been created, and the last 10% will mostly be created in China, which nation happens to be his great hope for Tesla (recently fading). Maybe he will convince them to be more eco-friendly, but apparently they’re building up to 400 coal-fired electrical generating stations, half of them in China. They are very practical people.
Bitcoin is backed by inate scarcity.
Many people assume maintaining USD is free. There have been analyses estimating BTC energy usage is not far off from currency printing and maintenance. But the other issue is trust. Do you trust the Fed and USA to maintain value of USD vs scarcity of decentralized 21m BTC?. Nasdaq study says 46m Americans own a bit of BTC. What happens when that doubles or triples? Wallet holders have been doubling about every year since 2014. BTC price could go up or down. But the upside due to scarcity is part of the allure. Just like Vegas. So you guys never play the lottery for fun when it’s at half to a billion dollar prise? EVERYONE who bought and held BTC up to 2020 has WON big. I can send BTC to anyone, it acts like currency. It is also scarce and acts like GLD. So you might understand it as digital gold. Best and worst characteristics of both incorporated.
Your poop is also subject to inate scarcity.
“There have been analyses estimating BTC energy usage is not far off from currency printing and maintenance.”
Except that recognized currency serves billions of people, trillions of transactions, etc.
“But the other issue is trust.”
Do you trust the handful of people who handle the bitcoin’s core code and decide how it evolves? You gonna tell me it’s open source and open community, yada yada. But truth of the matter is there’s only a very select few who know the core code *and* have the authority to influence how it’ll change. The vast majority of the community follows with blind faith.
“I can send BTC to anyone, it acts like currency. It is also scarce and acts like GLD.”
You can only send to someone who has an account to hold BTC. It cannot act like a currency if people don’t spend it because they think it’ll go up in value. Most businesses who claim to accept bitcoin don’t even wanna hold bitcoin; they deal with a service that takes the bitcoins and that pays the businesses in real currency — the businesses never see the color of the bitcoin, so to speak.
Spare yourself the trouble. The poster to whom you replied doesn’t want to believe anything other than what they believe now.
BTC or any other “crypto currency” will never function as an actual currency when it’s value fluctuates so wildly. That’s what Wolf has stated on this site numerous times, so have others here, and it’s blatantly obvious.
BTC may be limited but there is no limit to potential competitors. The potential supply of “crypto currency” is potentially infinite. It currently has brand name recognition from first mover advantage but nothing else.
Ha-Ha, that’s good, intosh.
Yes, something that exists as only one part in 7 Billion daily is indeed an innately-numerically scarce item.
And for South Park fans, it could contain….The Spice!
Wrong. Bitcoin is not “scarce” – the total number of available units is restricted. And that restrictions is entirely artifical. All it takes to be removed is a decision by the Bitcoin Core team and distribution of a new version of the software.
The dollar is backed by the U.S. economy. Cryptocurrencies are backed by FOMO.
the dollar is backed by military force and inertia. and corporations.
cryptocurrencies are backed by wasted electricity.
fify
//The reason Dollars have value is not because it costs anything to print them but because they’re backed by the full faith and credit of the US Gov. Translation: the US Military.//
The US controls the following 3 things to keep herself the political leader in the world:
1. Military
2. US dollar
3. crude oil
Perhaps no other country can defeat the US with military power. So, we are down to either crude oil and US dollar, and we can tell one of them is collapsing…
I would argue that within 20 years China could easily defeat the USA with military power.
Just remember that the USA could not beat half of Vietnam in a war.
Vietnam also gave China a bloody nose in their border war.
BTW: no nuclear power is ‘easily defeated’ by any other, if by defeat we mean surrender as in VE or VJ.
The largest component of China’s military is the PLA, which is not much use either to project force overseas or in its myriad failing business schemes. The CCP is trying to scale it back but most of its personnel have no where to go.
T-Wolf, maybe I’m naive and probably not as smart but when you write dollars have value “because they’re backed by the full faith and credit of the US Gov. Translation: the US Military” I tend to disagree. I think the fact that we are the longest standing continuous representative democracy that had at one point built the strongest middle class (and way cool cars for the masses) had something to do with it. Maybe the U.S. is losing it’s way but lets not give in completely to cynicism. And do US citizens really understand the consequences of the dollar being toppled from it’s throne? It won’t be pretty (unless you enjoy seeing democracy’s stance in the world crumble).
Most USD demand comes from interest and principal payments. In case anyone has not noticed, there is a lot of USD debt and it’s always growing.
Everyone living within US borders is supposed to pay taxes and can only do so with USD. That’s a lot of demand. Try paying in anything else and see where it gets you.
Anyone who wants to do business with any US government entity has to accept USD. No one that I know has refused to do so due to the payment method, yet. This is a lot of demand.
For now at least, exporters to the US accept USD as payment. Most international trade is denominated in USD. It’s subject to change far more easily than the other three I listed but it’s a lot of demand also.
TW
“the high energy/lives cost attached to it” as “value creation”. An interesting notion on bitcoin vs the dollar, but I have no idea how one could calculate and compare the two, and I doubt anyone does.
I’m old-fashioned and stick with the “coin of the realm”, and have no interest whatsoever in gambling with what little money I have. (you can call it “investing” or “trading” till you are purple in the face, but it’s still gambling…betting money to make even more money).
All the techniques involved (per article) in upping your own chance of success must take some of the thrill out of it, and I see that as a sick coldblooded action, not only taking the thrill out of it, but overall causing damage to others lives, who aren’t even IN the casino because they cannot afford it. On a ball in space, it IS a zero sum game.
I can’t help but think of that guy who free climbed El Capitan. Even as an ex-skydiver from the much more risky days (’74-’80), I could hardly make myself watch it. THAT is gambling.
As far as I’m concerned, there are a lot of people here who wasted their youth to “savor” whatever dubious delights they now possess or have access to in their old age, but that was their choice. Such is life.
But higher risks aside;
“All capital comes from labor, which should therefore be given the much higher consideration” – Abe Lincoln
All capital comes from labour and energy would be more accurate.
OK BOOMER!
c_heale,
Sorry that wasn’t meant for you, but to all here, if it fits, WEAR IT! And I hope the youth will shake their fears and ACT on it.
One of the problems of being near the front of comments and typing slow….and I guess not refreshing website.
Anyway, energy also comes from labor, and “LIFESTYLE” comes from BOTH!
A little treat long dead organisms “left us”, which we have been abusing horribly and, (species-wise) suicidally.
NBay,
“I can’t help but think of that guy who free climbed El Capitan. Even as an ex-skydiver from the much more risky days (’74-’80), I could hardly make myself watch it. THAT is gambling.”
No, that wasn’t “gambling,” according to my understanding.
His preparation for the climb was the most methodical tedious thing that lasted like two years that I’ve ever seen. He planned and described and took notes of every little dimple in the rock that he would have to put his finger into during his innumerable practice climbs.
He took huge risks. But he left nothing to chance. He didn’t rely on luck.
While he was preparing, one of his pro climbing buddies died falling off a mountain. That was an impulsive guy, according to the documentary, who did take gambles.
I encourage you to watch the documentary again and pay attention to all the details, the kind of stuff he writes into his note books, etc.
But you’re right: I too had trouble watching the final climb.
Wolf-
I agree he thoroughly prepped a long time, and one day started but came back because he “didn’t feel right”. All skydivers train and prep (“dirt dives”, exit practice) and carefully examine their gear…usually.
If you were so certain “he left nothing to chance” and didn’t rely on “luck”, why did you have a hard time watching it?
Even “pros” make mental mistakes, or their own “muscle memory” does.
I think that one day historians will look back on Elon with the same degree of reverence that they now have for Herbert Hoover, Edsel Ford, Bernie Madoff, Michael Milken or the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Hoover is underrated, tho
Reply to Seneca’s Cliff,
You say Herbert Hoover? Oh, I almost forgot. He was President of the United States during the stock market crash between 1929-1932 that took the Dow down about 90% and brought on the deepest and longest depression in the 20th century and perhaps in US History since 1789.
Edsel Ford died at 49 years of age in 1943 of stomach cancer and preceded his father Henry in death by 4 years, who himself died in 1947 at the age of 83. Edsel Ford had no input over the manufacture of the Edsel automobile 1958-1960. Robert S. McNamara who became President of Ford Motor Corporation in 1960 had been opposed to the manufacture of the Edsel in 1958. McNamara became Secretary of Defense under President John F Kennedy from 1961 through 1967.
[Hoover] “He was President of the United States during the stock market crash between 1929-1932”
That’s like giving credit to Richard Nixon for moon landing because he was then the president.
1929 crash was the culmination of Fed experimentation with crazy levels of credit expansion in the 20s.
Bravo, Nacho Libre.
Old myths die hard. People should read about Hoover’s accomplishments, especially while he was Secretary of Commerce and his food relief during WWI.
A truly remarkable man who inherited a mess and the ignorant still blame him for.
I stand corrected and apologize for including Hoover with a list that includes Elon and Madoff. He was after all one of only 2 engineers to be president and grew up a few miles from my childhood home in Oregon. After more thought I realized that the figure on the list most like Musk was the Bhagwan. He seduced thousands of starry eyed believers in to giving up their riches to him in hope of gaining access to his utopian vision. At the same he grew rich and obtained ( given to him by his fanboys and fan girls) the worlds largest fleet of Rolls Royces. Most of these true believers were “enlightened” folks from California. But after a great run which saw him and his followers build a utopian city in the Desert it all crashed in tragedy, driven by greed, ego and paranoia.
Today, Hoover’s policies are basically the “what not to do in a recession” bible.
Hoover is a bottom-5 US president, although he was a trailblazer in 1 way: he was the first in what would become 100 years worth of Republicans who ruin the economy until a Democrat has to come in and fix it.
Nacho Libre- correct about the credit or blame given to presidents. A depression of the scope in the ’30’s clearly comes from the usual (and not well recognized) combination of lots of variables getting into a bad situation, causing the perfect storm.
Most people don’t even know that Hoover took many actions to try to alleviate the depression through government action- for which he is blamed by those who think he shouldn’t do that.
There are/were many causes for these events. And, responses are time dependent. An action that is positive at one time can be very negative at another time in the sequence of events.
Nacho/Mi-nevertheless, when one aspires to sit behind ‘that great, resolute desk’, one needs to accept that the the buck truly stops there. No free passes, no do-overs, the electorate, informed or not, will let you know how your term went, in their opinion (…well, given the current machinations of a certain political party, maybe not in the near future…).
may we all find a better day.
Just look at a chart of the top marginal tax rate over time and see who was the prez then.
If you still believe in trickle down, then don’t bother.
@A
Ha, another stubborn fallacy. It is nauseating to see the sycophants getting on their knees in front of this war criminal. He sent American citizens of Japanese descent to concentration camps where hundreds (thousands?) perished.
In economic terms, FDR was a great opportunist who capitalized on the crisis, prolonged it and milked it for a decade. Contrast it with the 1920-21 depression. There was no “new deal”. Economy recovered within 2 years as it had done multiple times in the century before.
Nacho-without doubt, the internment remains a stain on our country. I defy you, knowing the longstanding issues of race in the U.S., to say that a president from another party would have done anything else-you seem to place all of your criticism on FDR, and not a U.S. population that, frankly, wasn’t marching in the streets protesting internment while they were enlisting to ‘make the world safe for democracy’ (and according to some polls in the ’30’s, prox. 25% thought the Nazis had ‘a better way’ than our existing government as did a prox. 25% favoring the Communists…), a population that post 12/7/41 desperate to hit back at an enemy that successfully challenged that population’s smug beliefs about itself. A population that today, doesn’t seem to have changed, much.
It is complex, very hard grapple, this human nature.
My father served in the Pacific Navy in WWII, seeing service at Guam, Saipan, Bougainville, and under heavy kamikaze attack at Okinawa, followed by some time in the ruin of postwar China. He was a conflicted man over his life experiences. Growing up in the ’20’s/’30’s in San Diego, his best friends, he told me were Nisei and second-gen Japanese-American kids. He recalled that they ‘just disappeared’ when they were interned. When i asked if he had attempted to get in touch with any of them after the war, he just shook his head, and would say no more on the subject.
Having survived the filthy, absolute horror of war, i like to think i somewhat understand my father’s conflict in that his experience could not let him get past pasting a formidable and vicious (by an oft-hypocritical ‘Western’ standard) enemy’s heritage/practices onto his childhood friends, even though though, by law and fact they were as ‘American’ as he, and indeed, his own Swedish-immigrant father. Or perhaps it was private shame in our nation’s actions against its own citizens. In any event, i’ll never know.
And so it goes, today.
As my father’s father told me when i was young: “…Sweden didn’t want me-America did…it’s all about an idea, not about where i came from-you work, you pay your taxes, you’re a full citizen. I never want you to bow before great wealth, OR look down on or expect a bow from someone not as well-off as you…”.
His faith in our U.S. ‘idea’ was perhaps too great.
may we all find a better day.
Paraphrasing your own words, “when one sits behind the resolute desk, they need to accept the buck truly stops there.”
A different president would have done the same thing under those circumstances is your speculation, not a fact.
Perhaps another president would have anticipated better and prevented the attack on the Pearl harbor altogether.
Even recently, one president proudly received a Nobel peace prize and went on to start two new wars. President from the other party didn’t start any. Brokered many peace treaties between hostile countries instead.
They all act differently and history shouldn’t be kind to war criminals.
Thank you for sharing your personal story. War is hell and sorry WW2 affected your family deeply.
NBay, the TDS is strong in you, same as the Nobel committee.
Perhaps you should go read up some books than watching CNN or wherever you get your confirmation bias and fake history.
Wishing you a speedy recovery.
Any pill you know of to relieve me and the Nobel Committee of our TDS?…there may be others, too….
I watch Tucker, Laura, Hannity, Bongino, Sara Carter, Levin, etc, etc, almost as much as you likely do. Why should I watch talking heads saying what I agree with? What’s to learn there?
I had decided by the first debate he was a lying moron, and a nasty one, at that. In fact, I used to go out of my way to see him at rallies, and in the very FEW interviews, and usually laughed my ass off. It was so absurd he was actually Prez.
I do NOT know who diagnosed/invented TDS, perhaps you might enlighten me? I do know it means he could save the entire world, and these sick TDS people would still think he was an ignorant self-serving jerk, though.
Thanks.
I’d also like to know why Hannity quit throwing that nerf football, and if after he stirs you all up, does “Let not your heart be troubled” REALLY work, and calm you right down?
If not, he is just wasting words, and you owe it to him as a loyal viewer to write and say so.
Since Wolf wouldn’t publish my original reply to this, here is a buttoned up version for the benefit of readers.
The economy did indeed recover from the depression of 1920-21 without any ‘fixing’ or ‘new deal’.
Economy had multiple depressions in the 19th century (pre-Federal reserve) and recovered within couple of years.
Yep. You are right. I just re-read it. The 20-21 depression (recession?) was a short one and there were many like it before. Since you were badmouthing FDR, I read it (incorrectly) as referring to the first 2 years of the Great Depression, so you caught me being more focused on the forest than the tree. My Error.
Will you forgive me a simple mistake, or just chalk it up to my severe TDS?
I don’t think you should include Edsel Ford in that list. Edsel Ford was a talented car designer and forward-thinker; it’s his father who was an a-hole (and Nazi sympathizer). Edsel Ford wanted to move the company forward, but his dad was stuck in the past, fought modernization–he insisted on keeping mechanical brakes after hydraulics were proved much more effective and safe–and almost bankrupted F. Henry rode Edsel so much he had serious gastrointestinal issues, which likely contributed to the stomach cancer which eventually killed him. The Edsel car was designed and built as a testament to Edsel, long after he died.
Edit: ‘testament’ => ‘tribute’
I would compare Elon Musk to P.T. Barnum.
Yes, the Bhagwan! During my surviving of the 80’s recession period, fence building was one of many things I did. My partner was a sort of spiritual type, and took one of the free bus rides up there. Said he was cold and miserable, barely fed, hung out in the gift shop as much as he could to keep warm, and other bad experiences.
Not sure what the Rolls Guru was up to when he did that….votes maybe?
Yesterday USDT,prime mover of BTC, or, if you like,Fed of the Crypto World,disappeared from Coindesk 20.In the past 2 charts – issuance of new USDT and BTC price – looked the same.
I doubt Musk has something to do with it.Also daily BTC volume plunged from the customary $24B to $5B.
What is interesting – as of today one BTC transaction consumes 1500 kw*h of electricity.In China 1kw*h costs 5¢.How come BTC transaction fee, after reaching all time high of $60, came down to $6?
Probably Chinese miners are doing charity work,helping BTC zealots to get rich ?
It is not Chinese Chess,more likely Chinese Go which is much much more complicated.
A very interesting comment, Thanks.
Makes me think of a documentary (several years ago) I saw of a large Chinese BTC mining operation right next to a very remote (but smallish, to me) hydro power dam….wonder what the price of a KW/hr is right there?
Sorry, bad units, bad math. KWHr
China’s electricity prices are not the lowest in the world compared,for example,to Iran’s 1¢ per kw*h or Qatar’s 3¢ per kw*h.
It is the synergy of USDT blast furnace & Chinese BTC mining farms which keeps BTC soaring and plummeting.
Nowadays BTC is pretty much useless for our daily needs,in other words-BTC is Rebel in search of a Cause.All dark net markets abandoned it in 2019 and switched to Monero.And nobody in his right mind will buy $5 cup of coffee and pay $7 fee.Watching daily BTC roller coaster 12% up,14% down,8% up is even less fun.
Good description of what keeps this BTC Casino going is in the article:
“The Bit Short: Inside Crypto’s Doomsday Machine” – You might be interested in googling it
I will. Thanks
BC is a reciprocating pump- and- dump scheme where a few thousand players and touts, troll little fish, reel them in and use part of the catch to chum the waters again.
It’s UNREGULATED. The players can sell back and forth to each other to create the illusion of a market.
The way things are going, there is going to be one currency and that’s gold/silver. Dollar will be toilet paper and crypto isn’t backed by anything.
If things get that bad, gold and silver won’t be worth as much as survival rations.
True in a total collapse but gold and silver have been very useful in preserving wealth in Argentina, Venezuela, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Germany and where ever there is high inflation.
There’s a difference between hyperinflation and food availability. Its often affordability that’s the problem. There could be food that you couldn’t afford – unless you had a different currency that was accepted. Venezuela is the poster child for how government mismanagement both causes and perpetuates hyperinflation. Look up bachaqueros. They actually address the problem but it’s a very dangerous profession.
Everyone knows about Weimar but few are aware that Austria preceded Germany. Austria was swarmed with foreigners who played pac man with the country’s assets. It was so bad that unemployed people on the dole in England rented luxury hotel rooms in Austria and lived there.
So the food will be there but not affordable. If word gets out that you have a large stash of food even your large stash of guns won’t save you.
Owning farmland may seem attractive but IMHO only for self sustenance. I say this because as food prices rise the idiocracy will institute price controls. Then the cost of production becomes higher than what you can sell it for.
It’s all laid out in the Venezuela blueprint.
I started hydroponic gardening in 2008, not because I’m a veggie fan but because I wanted to establish a partial food supply. If the SHTF I will add aquaponics for protein.
I’ve always wondered about the nutrition in wild oats…you know, the weeds we cut that really up the CA fire danger. Since they are a European import, the local Indians never had thousands of years to come up with a way to process and eat them. I mean, they ARE an oat.
I know the Yokuts of the Kern county area managed to make Oak acorns a large part of their diet.
Who knows?
If you get rich off it, send what you can to Wolf for his website project.
Just Saying: Rusland still has the Ruble and one can buy toilet paper with it.
America is just not going back to year 700 AD just because of some loss of faith in one shared fantasy that we call a currency.
But Russia has aggressively de-dollarized. If the dollar crashes it’s going to take a lot of others with it.
Russian independence from dollars might be its saving grace.
Michael Gorback,
Russia is fully addicted to the dollar and the euro: Its state-owned corporate giants have sold huge amounts of dollar and euro bonds to fund their operations, which include subsidies for Russians in Russia, that would otherwise be taken care of by the state.
If Russia were able to de-dollarize, those state-owned companies would issue ruble bonds only. But ruble bonds are iffy due to a history of high inflation, currency devaluations, and government/central bank defaults, and investors therefore demand much higher yields from ruble-bond issuers.
Wolf, I respectfully disagree. Their trajectory is clearly to de-dollarize, as evidenced by their accumulation of gold and attempts to set up alternatives to SWIFT.
If the dollar craters those dollar-denominated bonds will be easy to pay off. So the Russians fund at a lower rate and if the bonds become worthless who loses?
Meanwhile Russia sits on a veritable fortune in hard assets like oil, minerals, and gas, which could come in mighty handy if fiat blows up. Where does Europe buy its natural gas from? If the euro loses 99% of its value that won’t be Russia’s problem. Natural gas prices will go up accordingly.
Putin may be a murderer and a lot of other things but he’s an effing genius when it comes to protecting Russia. Russia’s status on the global chess board is amazing when you consider their economy is smaller than Italy’s.
If you rotate the board 180 degrees and see his perspective Russia has lost a lot. The former USSR satellites and Iron Curtain countries were geographical buffers against land-based attacks. Russia has lost that protection. NATO sits at their front door now, not on the front sidewalk. A lot of what he does that looks evil from our POV is very reasonable from Russia’s POV.
Is he ruthless? Yes. Unethical? Yes. Therefore qualified to be POTUS? Yes.
Until Russia adapts Bitcoin like El Salvador, then hallelujah, all of BTC sphere will rejoice, while US will quadruple down its attack of evil cryptos because now it’s used by the Putin.
The dollar hegemony will eventually come to an end, but it would not be in our lifetime no matter how much the Feds try to accelerate it.
‘Russia’s status on the global chess board is amazing when you consider their economy is smaller than Italy’s.’
In your eyes, sure. More people consider it close to a failed state. It’s either 50 or 51 in GDP per capita depending on whether using dollars or PPE. Behind Argentina. It has a declining life expectancy. Credit Suisse says inequality in Russia is so extreme it belongs in a category all by itself.
As for land attacks from Europe ( Barbarossa 2.0) that is too absurd to pursue except to note that Germany, presumably to be involved, kind of overdid its disarming and now has 300 tanks. And no nukes. NATO’s Rapid Reaction force is I believe 20, 000 men.
Russia can bring overwhelming conventional force to bear on any point of its border.
RE; Putin/Russia
“Every dictator rides a tiger he dare not dismount” -Churchill
He didn’t say anything about getting bucked off, though……
I don’t think anyone ever argued we’d go back to 700 AD. But our standard of living will take a huge hit if the rest of the world isn’t willing to send us their stuff, including energy, for our printed dollars, which we are maniacally printing more and more every day.
The nations sending us the most stuff have built economies heavily dependent on exports to keep their workers employed and their factory owners rich.
There is no way to run a trade surplus except to lend your customers the money to buy your goods. China cannot just stash the dollars it takes in in a money bin somewhere. China’s trade surplus with the world in 2020 was $535 billion; if it were not to lend those dollars back out to the trade deficit nations, how would they be able to.buy its exports? It would be draining $535 billion per year from the global money supply. This would ‘strengthen’ the dollar, not weaken it. If they were to demand that their customers pay them in yuan, well, just how would their customers get their hands on any? By exporting something to them? But if they were to start accepting imported some goods instead of making them, that would put some of their workers out of jobs, and some of their factory owners out of business.
Nations like China that run constant trade surpluses are engaging in a form of “vendor financing fraud’, like Lucent did back in the dotcom bubble years to pump up its sales
To subsidize its exporters, Chna manipulates the yuan-dollar exchange rate to make ‘comparative advantage’ appear to exist where it does not. By doing so it has as a nation impoverished itself by paying many trillions of yuan to its importers for dollars whose buying power is only a fraction of their worth. But the loss is manifested in ways not immediately visible. It’s a hidden way to transfer wealth from society at large to the exporters.
RightNYer –
1) US is energy self-sufficient. Europe, Japan and China are the ones swapping printed currencies for energy.
2) More or less same story in agriculture.
3) US median standard of living would be higher, not lower, if we produced the rest of what we consume. Workers would be paid more and could afford more. The trade-deficit economy only makes the elites wealthy, not the middle or lower classes.
‘More or less same story in agriculture’
‘In 2018, the EU agri-food trade reached a value of €254 billion – €138 billion of exports and €116 billion of imports, confirming for another year the EU’s position as the largest global exporter and second largest importer of agri-food products.’
France especially is an ag powerhouse, with good soil, climate, and a network of rivers.
Do people ever get tired of saying that?
Lance Manly
“Do people ever get tired of saying that?” why would you say that?
When everything is pointing in that direction? When the Fed says inflation is “transitory” do you actually believe that? This is the same Fed that said we’re not in a housing bubble in 2007.
Do you think that that Basel 3 coming out at the end of this Month which coincides with the mortgage forbearance ending is done by accident? We are on the verge of switching to a new currency or monetary system.
Because they can’t get it thru their heads that it’s only FUNCTIONAL value is in high end electronics……one might as well say they want money based on Picasso paintings…..(or my favorite, restored Can Am or F-1 cars , especially McLarens)
In recent times copper WAS considered, but it’s too bulky, because it’s relatively plentiful. (Up to $4.50+ again, BTW, not infl adj.)
The only mineral stuff with REAL value right now, is fossil fuel, but if we know what’s good for us as a species, we had better start working towards leaving it in the ground, and soon.
Stablecoins are. You have to use a crypto to establish a blockchain for stablecoin, then put up collateral to back the stablecoin. It’s what makes them more stable.
So you can use ethereum to set up a stablecoin backed by gold. Whoever accepts your stablecoin in a transaction is buying the volatility of the gold price, not the volatility of Elon Musk.
The collateral can be other assets such currency. The volatility of major currencies is low. So your stablecoin collateral could be yen, USD, euro, etc with no more volatility than cash.
Ethereum is not like bitcoin. It’s the most popular crypto for stablecoins and therefore plays a major role in DeFi.
I’m not sure DeFi is ready for prime time yet but if desperate governments enact capital controls it would be very attractive. Even now if you use DeFi you can leave the country and have millions at your disposal in stablecoins backed by dollars, gold, etc.
Try doing that with actual dollars or gold. Traveling with even small amounts of physical PM can run you onto the rocks at a lot of international borders.
And if they’re coins do you use the face value or the underlying physical value? A Silver Eagle has a face value of $1 and a melt value in the $28 range. When you declare that you’re leaving the USA with 1000 ASEs, are you leaving with $1000 (no problem) or $28,000 (big problem).
I’d love to see what happened if you tried that with junk silver. Imagine officials sorting through a trunk full of old dimes, quarters, half dollars, etc.
Exactly this. Some of this technology is useful for transactions of real stuff, not as currency in its own right.
Then as a transaction protocol it needs to be fast, cheap, scalable and reliable.
However, most crypto currencies are not designed for transactions but primarily to enrich the creators. The current implementation of ETH also suffers from high cost and bad scalablity. But at least it has useful applications running on it.
It’s clear Elon is a CCP agent ….
CCP : Crypto Currency Party
IT ALL MAKES SENSE!!!
When Tesla pops it is going to hurt a lot of foolish people, there may be a fool born every minute, but as Phineas Barnum noted two are born to take him.
Depending on a greater fool to bail you out works until it doesn’t.
Suddenly.
As Will James noted some people learn by reading, some by observation and the rest of us have to piss on the electric fence our own selves.
Does anyone really believe anything Musk says? Really?
:-) No, but a lot of people believe that everybody else believes everything Musk says, and those people are enough to move the market when they try to front-run everybody else.
Wolf says that market players should ignore Musk, but they can’t: they’re market players.
In that sense, it’s very much like the Fed. People know that the Fed can’t actually save the world, but they believe that enough people believe they can, and thus buy overpriced crap because they think they can sell it to a greater fool.
It’s one giant confidence game.
If I were a big crypto player I’d do my market manipulations when Musk opens his mouth and let the Twittersphere blame him.
Musk will make Bernie Madoff look like a choirboy.
I think Elon Musk is having fun, and secretly enjoying the tiny screams of puny investors on twitter, by taking the piss out of BitCoin because he got a mild slap from the SEC over talking too much about TSLA?
BitCoin is 100% unregulated, therefore, I seriously doubt it is possible to even get close to any kind of “securities fraud” stuff by just manipulating sentiments concerning the imagined value of it. Elon Musk wants “Them” to try.
P & D is a tried-and-true strategy of the whales. Follow and buy the dip. Why the blame games?
Elon Musk, if there’s a poster boy for modern day false idol, his picture would be right next to it.
It’s pretty amazing to see how much the SEC let this man child get away with. It’s kind of like seeing taking an older brother taking the arm of the sibling and hit him with it and ask “Why are you hitting yourself?” In this case, EM is the older brother and SEC being the arm. Why not F with them if you know you can pretty much get away with it anyway.
We used to call people like Musk, charlatans.
If one men can influence it with 10% gaines or losses, just with a tweet, its worthless.
Blockchain technology has enabled a few wonderful things that are transforming the way transactions are done. However, BTC is outdated technology. BTC isn’t good at any of its stated purposes.
The idea that BTC would somehow become viable when the energy it consumes moves to 50% renewable is stupid. This massive energy consumption is still a cost. It also doesn’t solve the fact that BTC doesn’t scale.
The whole proposition becomes even more stupid when you realise that there are other blockchain technologies out there (being used as we speak) that are super fast, scale very well and use less energy than even a normal visa transactions (Stellar for example). So BTC is completely obsolete imo.
YuShan, thanks for mentioning steller. I checked it out. Looks very promising.
Ethereum was designed to allow contracts – even contracts with automatic self-execution – to be created.
People are making money on ethereum-based loans. The contract terms are set (amount, interest, collateral, length of contract, etc) and the repayment is automatically executed on the expiration date if so desired.
So we can write a contract where you lend me 10 ETH to be paid back with 11 ETH in one year, attach the contract to the blockchain, and have it automatically executed at term.
Agree that BTC is more of a proof of concept than a viable tool for commerce.
Steller looks a lot like DeFi, tether, etc. When someone issues a token what collateral backs the token and is it placed in escrow to guarantee redemption?
Do you need a bank account or other financial institution to fund your tokens or redeem them? If so I don’t think Maduro would tolerate his Venezuelan prisoners using this platform. A lot of Venezuelans have left the country and send their income home to their families in foreign currency. I doubt they are using conventional financial institutions.
Why not use mobile money, which can be used for transactions without a bank account?
There’s one common thread here: people want a divorce from banks and credit cards.
I’m talking about Stellar as a protocol for transactions. You can use it to transfer ownership in real assets such as stocks or precious metals.
Everybody focuses on crypto currencies that have no intrinsic value, but that is imo not where the interesting applications are.
Of course people are responsible for their own actions, so if they jump on BTC because of Musk’s tweets it is their own stupidity. However, if you are Musk and you know that you have such influence on people, this gives you at the least a moral obligation to use it in a responsible way.
There are a lot of stupid people out there, driven by FOMO etc. But that doesn’t give you a licence to hurt them financially with your trolling for your own pleasure. For Musk it doesn’t matter if he loses a billion. It doesn’t change his life at all. But some people have just lost their lifetime savings because they followed their messiah and FOMO.
Also, in defence of the people who lost on this: many of them are driven by despair because of the inflationary bubble blowing policies conducted by central banks. Many people now feel that the only way to get ahead in life is to win a lottery of some sort, because hard work and saving won’t cut it anymore.
YuShan, you mentioned Moral Obligation in the same paragraph as Elon Musk…He is no different than many of the other billionaires today whose egos have been inflated with their wealth. Today, for most, it is all about the Media whether it be Main Stream Media or Social Media and these egomaniacs thrive on the continued mention of their names. In all reality Musk IS a genius but not for his Tesla cars or his Space X but for his salesmanship. His ability to sell Governments on financing him is one of the greatest sales of all time.
Musk is a sociopath, so of course he doesn’t care if he hurts others. These people are born without consciences.
“Many people now feel that the only way to get ahead in life is to win a lottery of some sort, because hard work and saving won’t cut it anymore.”
This never worked in most of the world. For example, Peru. Born Peruvian, you had to be born rich (top 5% or better) and work the poor country’s dirty rich man’s game. Then with that luck, you could be comfortable. But probably not actually happy.
Now in the USA, the USD being reserve currency is no longer enough to support a large middle class. MC has been shrinking for many years now, and year by year it is still shrinking. Trump could not stop this trend. And Biden won’t stop it either.
People don’t reach the heights Musk does by accounting for their moral obligations.
He’s just your run-of-the-mill drug-fuelled eccentric billionaire.
If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen..
Let me get my small violin out. Musk is merely doing what all the other psychopaths on Wall Street would love to be able to do which is manipulate the market on a whim.
As you noted that South African tech CEO is quite happy with his shenanigans….as long as they lift the value of Bitcoin.
There are as many opinions in the universe as there are people. On the other hand there are relatively few undisputed physical realities in the universe. Entropy is one of them. Energy for us starts as high grade fusion in the Sun and degrades downhill until it becomes low level background energy in space. The ‘work’ it does on that journey is what counts for civillisation’. Burning gas takes your car and Amazon delivery over distance and leaves ‘waste’ heat behind it. Low grade wind energy can be lifted back up to high grade electricity by windmills which concentrate small air pressure differences on huge blades into small alternators rotating at generating speeds. This is not a free trick because you have to use high grade energy to make the windmill in the first place. Ditto for all ‘renewables’
The physical reality of money printing and Bitcoin in the universe is that money printing can run for ever at constant relatively small high grade energy degradation, if you are careful you can re-use the waste energy at a lower grade eg property heating, etc.
On the other hand Bitcoin is a mathematical protocol whereby creation of coins uses high grade (electric) energy by use of cpu’s which is asymptotic to 21 million coins. This means all the energy in the World cannot produce that 21millionth coin (theoretically). From the point of view of entropy if the computer cooling is blown off to air or water it becomes low grade background heat and raises ambient temperatures. If it is collected and used to boil water it can be raised to high grade electricity again and used over and over again. These sorts of things are all engineering decisions dictated by finance and politics. If you want to listen to politicians, PR men, Advertisers, MSM talking heads, feel free, they are just ‘noise’ in the way of things. It’s mainly all downhill energy-wise.
Nice summary A, but entropy, like all theories of physics, just another temporary ”agreement” AKA ”postulate.”
Should be clear enough to all of us studying physics original, ongoing, and current developments.
Someone much smarter than I am once said something like, ” when all agree is the time to go the opposite way.”
I’ve taught high school physics which of course is basically Newtonian or classical physics but try to stay in touch with modern physics. Of necessity this is via ‘popular’ books books etc. written by the real guys who try to ‘splain’ it to us non- math guys.
The charge and mass of the electron are known: the numbers aren’t the result of an ‘agreement’, except obviously, the standards used like ‘volt’.
We aren’t going to overturn the ‘agreements’ to calculate gravitational attraction. The same math used around 1700 to predict the return of comets etc. is used today to calculate lunar and Martian lander orbits.
Can one find a theoretical flaw in the Law of Entropy, that high energy flows to low? Sure, why was the high energy there in the first place? But that is not a question for physics.
Yeah, when classical mechanics ran headlong into electricity it really became quite a pickle to refigure things out…not to mention radioactivity. So we had to go to Quantum and settle for probabilitys.
All our stuff only works in closed systems. And only in closed systems that can be “manipulated” or “seen” by our species.
The real big, the real small, and time itself do seem unlimited.
This is the hand we have been dealt, what are we gonna do with it?
And no, I don’t think the “Big Bang” is any more of an “answer” than all of the dietys we have invented, if we even need such concepts.
And to top off our collection of more or less shared cultural synaptic wiring.
“I cannot experience your experience, and you cannot experience my experience” -RD Laing
Personally, I think we are in some brat kid’s equivalent of an ant farm, who is part of a superior alien race. And when his dad catches him abusing us, he’s going to kick his ass and take his toy away.
For what it’s worth, here is the currently agreed upon stuff that makes our present machinery work;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units
nk
What first place?
Enthalpy and Entropy are two different but easily confused concepts….be careful.
And matter/energy equivalence doesn’t help the overall sorting of things out much, either.
But applied in the right places, all these many mathematical expressions can be very useful, X-ray crystallography (materials science) and the familiar to all MRI machines, are good practical examples.
Elon has to make a negative comment from time to time to validate his honesty, to show he is a truth-talker, to justify action based on his positive comments. Bitcoin is a concept, it’s value depends on the extent of its acceptance, Musk is an influencer on that issue, so what he says about Bitcoin matters, like it or not. His comments seem random, stream of consciousness almost, but then they fit the concept: they are merely observations identifying the characteristics of bitcoin, which are well known already. He is toying with the market, there is no secret info here, nothing the SEC can do about it.
I am not sure that I agree with Wolf’s statement that Elon’s opinion is just that… an opinion. Of no more or less value than anyone else’s.
In point of fact he seems to have the power to get Bitcoin accepted by Tesla… then rejected. Which is a big deal if Bitcoin is going to be either a currency or merely a “store of value.”
I am starting to think that he is just mouthing off because he has smoked too much weed in recent times. It has altered his sense of reality to where he thinks the SEC isn’t waiting to pounce on him.
what I actually said:
“Musk – with Tesla able to put its billions of dollars to work that it raised from investors last year – is different. Folks cling to every one of his words. They have been for years with Tesla, all his now forgotten promises that made TSLA jump. Folks buy and sell based on what he says.”
You mean it’s like a reality distortion field, a la Steve Jobs.
OMG
Point taken.
I just talked to a friend in El Salvador about the country adopting Bitcoin. El Salvador has used the US dollar for years which has stabilized the (still poor) economy from losing currency value for their labor, at least a lot better than neighboring countries.
The fear of citizens using Bitcoin is of course the fluctuating value. People there are waiting to see if there will be a fast easy conversion of Bitcoin to the dollar. Besides, most people there do not have a bank account anyway.
However, El Salvador has huge sources of volcanic energy and the plan is to mine Bitcoin which you have to admit, is not a bad idea. Why not take advantage of the moment to prosper your country? It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out. It’s the first time Bitcoin, whatever the price, has actually benefited a whole country.
Years of throwing virgins in the volcano, now we are finally getting something back
Ha-Ha! We are busy insulting our volcanic gods here AB.
We get quite a bit (maybe all) of our local power from a long pipe that pumps…..well, all our shit and other wastewater down into the Geysers Geothermal “hot spots” and it comes back up and drives steam turbines.
What the fault system around here does, will, I suppose, be the volcanic god’s opinion of that “offering”.
Why waste an energy source on something that is useless? You can use that “free” energy for useful things instead.
If you want to introduce some digital currency as legal tender, why not pick one that actually works for practical transactions and that doesn’t use a sh!tload of energy?
I think that El Salvador thing will end up being really negative for BTC because it will expose its uselessness. That is, if any merchant will actually accept it as payment, considering that a single Elon tweet can bankrupt you. Sales margins are dwarfed by the day to day BTC volatility.
Yes, lots of pros and cons. Still, people all over the world are looking for something that doesn’t waste away in a bank account. Bitcoin may not be the solution, but what is? No one seems to know exactly what to do, they are just hoping stocks, bonds, and real estate hold up while the Powers-That-Be print the heck out of their already diluted dollar interests. No one talks about starting any meaningful production in the US.
At the moment, Bitcoin is not going away. If I had a volcano spitting out energy in my backyard, on my own sovereign real estate, dang right I would bring on the mining at present 40K a coin. Plus perhaps be a safe haven for those who want to store the goods along with perhaps gold. Lots of possibilities. Russia would offer to park a few Migs there if no one else wanted to.
Brant Lee
“Russia would offer to park a few Migs there if no one else wanted to.”
Do you want to suggest this awesome idea, with no possible back-draws to Mr Putin?
I think he might even like to use your great brain storming to help get Alaska to agree to similar deal maybe?
On a more serious note;
The only thing that El Salvador is really interested in is to get some of these proliferating crypto- exchanges to set up shop in the country, and benefit ( maybe) from some sorely needed investment.
The problem is, bitcoin have been exposed as a very ( unreliable) medium to conduct any business, and that includes illegal activities as well !!
Now before someone start attacking this point of view, think carefully ,
( most illegitimate activities on the dark web have been to a certain extent allowed to exist and flourish only with the knowledge and help of our law enforcement agencies!!!!!!).
Oxygen is provided by state players to most illegal activities that find markets in every corner of our economic lives!
This might surprise and shock you, but it is true.
At the behest of governments, lots of SHITE happens. It is important to have that sphere in the grand scheme of things. and it offers huge advantages to all the players to ;
mask activities,
assign unwanted or badly gone operations to the enemies ( anything that gets exposed and floats to the surface.
benefit financially and politically from such activities and lastly
gain advantages over your perceived or otherwise enemies.
Remember, everything is fair in love and war!!
OMGoodness. I was saying Putin would bottom-feed like everywhere else he has before if the world would object to the actions of El Salvador.
I also asked what are the solutions to wealth devaluation in every country when leaders play with the currency like their goobers?
“But Bitcoin is blah blah blah…”
Yeah, we all know that. I’ve made a bit of money off of crypto. When the fun is over, time to move on. Maybe El Salvador will do the same.
‘has actually benefited a whole country.’
Should read: ‘may benefit a whole country’
Since this is so far just an announcement let’s see how it plays out. There is also no necessary connection between mining BC and using it. China mines BC and has largely forbidden BC exchanges. You could think BC was complete nonsense and still mine it if someone will buy it.
“But markets are always looking for a messiah”
Ultimately the market is driven by fear and greed.
Now that’s the stuff of ‘investing’!
Bitcoin Schmidtcoin. All the focus is on an irrelevant minor indicator of human irrationality. So let people buy and sell whatever they want at whatever prices they want. It’s called a market. If they win they will just piss it away on something stupid anyway.
But, the important point, people do not have enough faith in their own skills and abilities to compete in a free market. So they look for a mythical “edge” that guarantees them unicorns and rainbow skittles. Who they will worship if winning and burn at the stake if losing.
Come on, man up, pay your money and take your chance. And don’t whine like a little pussy.
QQQ : a doji at the top, DM #7.
While Musk tweets about the speculative fancies like Bitcoin, Bezos is going to space, putting his life and fortune at risk to advance space travel and technology. Interesting contrast.
If you think that Elon and Jeff are fundamentally different, I have dogecoin to sell you.
Also, SpaceX is fairly far ahead of Blue Origin, and it’ll take a while to catch up, which is why Jeff quit the amzon CEO job.
SpaceX? Ever heard of it?
I don’t see Musk riding into space, laying it on the line. That’s the point. He’s more comfortable tweeting and smoking.
I’m still not entirely certain Bezos will take that ride. Those folks with monster egos and ambition really value their own asses HIGHLY. Like he’d order an organ from India or somewhere in a second if convinced he needed it.
Still would like to know exactly how Jobs acquired that liver, even if he still died…..not thru the same channels as my Viet Vet postal buddy (got hep C from a transfusion, after a 40mm rocket cooked off on him, and loaded a LOT of Agent Orange. At the time it looked like a better deal loading them than being a door gunner, though.
his remark about buying a tesla with btc is of zero importance clearly but it sent tesla shares much higher. I noticed before that tesla always has a lot of news; same thing most of it inconsequential but the shares react upwards.
The kind of people who listen on his every word cannot be overbright but just that does not explain this.
I listen to Elon’s every word, but I still consider myself relativley overbright.
Artem, I’m not doubting your brightness, but you must admit to having some type of fascination with Musk, Bezos, etc. because in your post above you refer to them by first name. That’s not what an objective observer does. Don’t let these billionaires take your finances on a downhill ride. Stay diversified. They couldn’t care less if you lose your money.
Musk must have watched Forest Gump over and over, and learned his peoples’ strategy from there.
I bet, his final words to his followers will be: I just wonna go home.
Musk is going to be buried on Mars next to the Mars colony/station. His final words will be “Neuralink failure, cancel upload”
Really?
I think he’s more likely to die of a heart attack playing a video game.
What would happen if an OFFICIALLY UNCOOL company like Chick-Fil-A or Goya started allowing bitcoin transactions?
Or those TV jewelry sales outfits.*
*see South Park
Megalomaniac.
I feel the “store of value” argument is the one that bitcoin believers are starting to cling to and circle the wagons around. It should keep the diehard faithful hanging around as state government actors continue to nibble at the edges of bitcoin’s integrity. As long as it is the refuge of scoundrels, the men with guns will continue threatening its existence to the point of extinction, but not all the way down. I do believe its liquidity and anonymity performs some useful purposes for the deep state actors of the world.