Mayhaps you have crypto funds that you've forgotten to report as income. Being able to get a brand-new car without having to involve IRS is a neat way to commit tax fraud.
The other option is to borrow USD against BTC to buy a Tesla (I just did that yesterday), but if loan-to-value goes over 80%, the companies will liquidate my BTC automatically. I'm just doing this because I'm speculating that we're just at the start of the next bubble in the cycle.
Like all things bitcoin it's easy. It's a lot easier to press a button on your phone and transfer 100k then it is to go through the pains of a bank transfer or any other payment method. I know hacker news is American centric but not all counties have the same cap gains taxes, plus you have to actually have a gain to pay taxes and these are all sorts of ways to mitigate this.
The 1/3 assume that the bitcoins are never going to be used again, that is a very bad assumption. Let's be very conservative and assume they will be used once per year for the next 10 years, so instead of the 20+6=26 tons of CO2 you get 20/10+6=8 tons of CO2. (And you get a bigger reduction if you assume more more exchange velocity or that bitcoins will be around for more time.)
Also, the 6 tons use the coefficient assume a 1% fee but with a $40,000 transaction, you don't have to pay a $400 fee. Probably $15, but let's be pessimistic and assume $40. So 20/10+6/10=2.6 tons of CO2, i.e. like 1/30 instead of 1/3.
(Being more optimistic, I think it can be reduced to 20/100+6/30=.4 tons of CO2, i.e 1/200 of the savings.)
The transaction energy cost to buy the car is tiny to even be considered. The trip to the dealership you make to buy your car with fiat money probably takes far more energy.
Per transaction, 792.37 kWh and 376 kg (828lbs) of CO2. That's about 27 days of electricity usage for an average US home. Or 62,000 hours of youtube video watching. Or 834,000 VISA transactions.
It's fine. Not a big deal what so ever. Bitcoin is obviously the most efficient means of monetary transaction. No reason to question it.
I don't think anyone is arguing BTC is energy efficient. It intentionally isn't, by design. Now, whether the tradeoffs are worth it is another question entirely.
If you're buying a vehicle to save the planet from unnecessary pollution, but use a payment that it unnecessarily polluting the environment... you... don't see a bit of a problem?
That only makes other consumers consume the fossil-based energy instead, overall CO2 production would remain constant. This is zero sum unless renewable plants were explicitly installed for mining bitcoin.
Because the world has been failing, for decades, to move grids away from carbon and towards zero emission technologies. And there is no end in sight.
If we could get all electricity generation to be zero emissions then climate change would be largely solved. And we'd be able to stop complain about btc. But until then...
Digiconomist adjusts to the average green energy production on the grid and averages out among countries that mine bitcoin. They detail out their math to arrive at their numbers.
I may be suffering from this misconception so would be happy for you to explain more / share an explanation. Doesn’t more transactions mean more fees, so more incentive to mine?
That's a really good point, more demand for the limited number of transaction space pushes up the tx price, incentivizing mining. Currently though, the majority of the block reward comes from inflation not transaction fees. With BTC price so high, it's likely that stopping transactions completely would not cause any miners to drop off as mining would still be profitable, which is why I say there's no marginal cost.
In the future, fees will necessarily become the dominant compensation as the inflation rate decreases, so this will likely stop being true. This is pretty far off though, and it's not clear that the environmental issue will still exist either due to a change in mining or just wider use of renewables for mining.
Hard to know for sure, but here's some inaccurate napkin-math:
A single BTC transaction requires ~376kg of CO2. [1]
Driving a Tesla emits ~91g CO2 per km. [2]
Average distance driven in the US per year, per car is 13,476mi (21687.5km). [3]
Driving your Tesla for a year emits ~1,973,562.5g of CO2, or 1,973.6kg.
So, if you buy one with Bitcoin, you're emitting ~19% more CO2 for that year than you would with cash or credit. You could further amortize the amount over the lifetime of the car.
Those numbers are absolutely, sickeningly staggering.
1 litre of petrol produces about 2.3 kg CO2. That means, a bitcoin transaction is the same as burning 163 litres of petrol. Absolutely insane.
I decided to do some more numbers. It means that driving a Tesla for 25.31 km produces as much CO2 as burning 1 L of fuel from a CO2 equivalence point of view. Put differently, Teslas get 3.95 L per 100 km from a CO2 equivalence point of view. Compare that with, say, a Mazda 6 which apparently uses 9.8 L per 100 km from a very quick search.
From a carbon emissions standpoint, Teslas are about 2.5x as efficient. Reasonable, to be sure, but not the order-of-magnitude difference I might have guessed if I had to take a stab in the dark.
proof of work may be superseded at some point (e.g. by proof of stake). Not even mentioning the Lightning Network which is going to help a lot...
Avoiding Bitcoin because we use coal to produce energy cannot be more wrong. The problem is that we produce energy with coal, not that Bitcoin uses energy to be mined. With such reasoning, then let's forget about smartphone, laptop, car, planes, house heating etc. and just go back straight to prehistory. Each of these things pollute the planet, let's not deny it.
And if you think that BTC is not worth this energy waste to get rid off USD dominance (among others), then it's maybe you're an American enjoying USD dominance. That's of course a very biased view.
> Tesla's terms and conditions say if a refund is needed, it can pay in either the exact amount of Bitcoin paid or in US dollars based on the dollar price of the car - whichever it wants.
I think you misunderstood. Based on the wording it would seem that Tesla gets to choose how to refund you. So if BTC goes up your refund will be the dollar value of the car, if it goes down you'll get BTC back.
There is a sizable portion of people who have made oodles of money on cryptocurrencies and spending it for the story has become valuable. It is the "I am rich" effect but for a different audience.
Edit: I'm not saying it is, but, just as an example, someone could buy BTC from an unregulated country, then purchase a Tesla and request a refund in dollars.
Transactions are registered on the blockchain, and that's transparent, verifiable by anyone. Much more than through any bank, ironically.
Regardless on how the car is paid, a car is delivered to a physical person, and Tesla asks for sure many information on that person... it's not like something purchased on the darknet delivered to an anonymous PO box :-)
I expect that a full refund will only be paid out due to circumstances uncontrollable by the customer, haha. Otherwise, as said, this is too simple a scam.
Peter Schiff (notorious Bitcoin critic) picked up on this as well:
> You can buy a #Tesla with #Bitcoin
, but you'd be a fool to do so. It's better to sell your Bitcoin and buy the car with cash. That's because at its sole discretion Tesla prices refunds or buyback in either the quantity of Bitcoin paid or their dollar value at the time of payment.
Is the price denominated in USD or in Bitcoin? The USD price for a Tesla tends to remain constant for relatively long stretches of time, I wonder if they're willing to commit to the BTC price staying put for similar amounts of time
Wouldn't that just result in everyone buying with the currency in which the car is the cheapest at that point in time? Seems like a guaranteed loss on Tesla's end.
I imagine so, there have been relatively few instances in which merchants were interested in selling directly for bitcoin, rather than using an intermediary to process the amount straight to a national currency.
I'm sure Elon Musk is not fond of having to go through Coinbase to buy bitcoin. He seems to have a disdain for financial middlemen and any tech leader not named Elon Musk.
This allows for bitcoin to be put directly into Tesla's wallet with no cost to them.
please explain how this shall be orchestrated on a multi-sig wallet, it's not like they do not already have more than 1.5 billions worth of USD already...
How do I know what wallet they’re using or if they’re using multi-sig? 1.5 billion makes them a bigger target. Just takes one mistake and the keys have to be stored somewhere.
Why? Don't true believers believe BTC has use besides being an unregulated speculative vehicle? So they'd love the normalization of buying something as major as a car with it?
Or are we just admitting that pretense is gone with the wind and now "true believer" refers to the HODL crowd?
Bitcoin is a non-sovereign, hard-capped supply, global,
immutable, decentralized digital store of value. It’s an
insurance policy against monetary and fiscal policy
irresponsibility from central banks and governments
globally. — @Travis_Kling
If you need a car, you need a car. I don't think anyone sees them as an investment other than "an investment in being able to get from A to B on one's own terms"
I've often said that the US government can, and will, outlaw crypto if it starts to feel threatened. It may not absolutely stop transactions, but the value of the coin will plummet tremendously if this happens.
However... if a sufficient scale of corporate interests stand to lose billions of dollars from the coin plummeting in value due to legal action I might rethink the viability of doing such a move politically.
That's exactly why I got enough confidence to finally make a bet on Bitcoin after Tesla (and a few other large companies) put significant numbers in it.
Interesting data point that $TSLA operates its own full BTC nodes. Why not mining pools that use solar / spare car battery and tpu / cloud gpu cycles ;)
Running a full Bitcoin node just means downloading and validating the blockchain, it doesn't require mining. It's just another way of saying they do not rely on a third party payment processor.
Since Bitcoin is mainly only used for crime, does that mean that Tesla is enabling criminal movement? Didn't someone get indicted recently for providing a service that was used by criminals? Let's get them, DoJ!
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[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 161 ms ] threadWhy deal with the cap gains taxes associated with this?
Also, the 6 tons use the coefficient assume a 1% fee but with a $40,000 transaction, you don't have to pay a $400 fee. Probably $15, but let's be pessimistic and assume $40. So 20/10+6/10=2.6 tons of CO2, i.e. like 1/30 instead of 1/3.
(Being more optimistic, I think it can be reduced to 20/100+6/30=.4 tons of CO2, i.e 1/200 of the savings.)
Edit: fine, downvote me but read this: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/axeldelamarre/files/master...
Per transaction, 792.37 kWh and 376 kg (828lbs) of CO2. That's about 27 days of electricity usage for an average US home. Or 62,000 hours of youtube video watching. Or 834,000 VISA transactions.
It's fine. Not a big deal what so ever. Bitcoin is obviously the most efficient means of monetary transaction. No reason to question it.
Why does each transaction need to release CO2? Can they not run off renewables or nuclear?
If we could get all electricity generation to be zero emissions then climate change would be largely solved. And we'd be able to stop complain about btc. But until then...
It is an estimate and an average. It might actually be in the low end.
In the future, fees will necessarily become the dominant compensation as the inflation rate decreases, so this will likely stop being true. This is pretty far off though, and it's not clear that the environmental issue will still exist either due to a change in mining or just wider use of renewables for mining.
A single BTC transaction requires ~376kg of CO2. [1]
Driving a Tesla emits ~91g CO2 per km. [2]
Average distance driven in the US per year, per car is 13,476mi (21687.5km). [3]
Driving your Tesla for a year emits ~1,973,562.5g of CO2, or 1,973.6kg.
So, if you buy one with Bitcoin, you're emitting ~19% more CO2 for that year than you would with cash or credit. You could further amortize the amount over the lifetime of the car.
[1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/
[2] https://www.electrive.com/2020/08/31/study-currently-availab...
[3] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm
1 litre of petrol produces about 2.3 kg CO2. That means, a bitcoin transaction is the same as burning 163 litres of petrol. Absolutely insane.
I decided to do some more numbers. It means that driving a Tesla for 25.31 km produces as much CO2 as burning 1 L of fuel from a CO2 equivalence point of view. Put differently, Teslas get 3.95 L per 100 km from a CO2 equivalence point of view. Compare that with, say, a Mazda 6 which apparently uses 9.8 L per 100 km from a very quick search.
From a carbon emissions standpoint, Teslas are about 2.5x as efficient. Reasonable, to be sure, but not the order-of-magnitude difference I might have guessed if I had to take a stab in the dark.
Edit: In contrast, the gains of public transit vs. individual car commutes are > 7x per km driven, before renewables: http://www.mobilitaet-in-deutschland.de/pdf/infas_Vortrag_if... , page 18 (German source, sorry, "Bus" == bus, "Bahn" == train)
That seems super wrong. They must be assuming very few transactions per block.
Transaction cost is probably about 100-200 kilowatt hours.
Another fun calculation.
How many instructions can a modern piece of computing hardware do on 750 kilowatt hours?
Just an indication of what an incredible beast bitcoin is.
Avoiding Bitcoin because we use coal to produce energy cannot be more wrong. The problem is that we produce energy with coal, not that Bitcoin uses energy to be mined. With such reasoning, then let's forget about smartphone, laptop, car, planes, house heating etc. and just go back straight to prehistory. Each of these things pollute the planet, let's not deny it.
And if you think that BTC is not worth this energy waste to get rid off USD dominance (among others), then it's maybe you're an American enjoying USD dominance. That's of course a very biased view.
Fascinating.
(Value goes up, get refund in bitcoin and buy car in dollars. Value goes down, get refund in dollars.)
There is a sizable portion of people who have made oodles of money on cryptocurrencies and spending it for the story has become valuable. It is the "I am rich" effect but for a different audience.
But it also risky. If the there is a major correction in the price of bitcoin, then Tesla is not going look so good.
However the refund policy is an explicit loss to the customer. You would have to be silly to accept that.
Edit: I'm not saying it is, but, just as an example, someone could buy BTC from an unregulated country, then purchase a Tesla and request a refund in dollars.
If you try to buy a new car with a briefcase full of cash, do they have to do something?
Regardless on how the car is paid, a car is delivered to a physical person, and Tesla asks for sure many information on that person... it's not like something purchased on the darknet delivered to an anonymous PO box :-)
In other words, Tesla will very likely refund you in Bitcoin unless there's a serious issue.
> You can buy a #Tesla with #Bitcoin , but you'd be a fool to do so. It's better to sell your Bitcoin and buy the car with cash. That's because at its sole discretion Tesla prices refunds or buyback in either the quantity of Bitcoin paid or their dollar value at the time of payment.
https://twitter.com/PeterSchiff/status/1374857273282035716
Win-win for Tesla.
Bitcoin enthusiasts are very excited about this (e.g. on /r/CryptoCurrency)
This allows for bitcoin to be put directly into Tesla's wallet with no cost to them.
It’s certainly held offline in cold storage.
Or are we just admitting that pretense is gone with the wind and now "true believer" refers to the HODL crowd?
However... if a sufficient scale of corporate interests stand to lose billions of dollars from the coin plummeting in value due to legal action I might rethink the viability of doing such a move politically.
That's not going to happen. Code and money are speech and bitcoin is both. Outlawing bitcoin would be unconstitutional.
It would be one of the easiest cases the Supreme Court ever had.
It’s treated as property by the IRS and a commodity by the CFTC and exchanges are regulated by the SEC. The US government has already approved it.
There are commodities that have become illegal.