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Quote: If customers buy Teslas with bitcoin, the company may or may not liquidate those payments right away — which some experts read as an indication that Tesla might hold on to at least some of the coins and not sell them automatically.
Pandering to the dark web.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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I assume you mean that BTC is only good for the dark web. Tesla isn't the first "regular" buyer. A number of professional investors are also buying BTC as well. I have no idea where it will end, but your take is rather blinkered.
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Laundering. I can see one "intrinsic value" of cryptocurrency: anonymity.
"Pro" investors ... you mean like the GameStop short sellers? They got their shorts handed to them.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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"Laundering" is an invented crime, to add another charge in the hope of a plea bargain. Charge people with their actual crimes, not "laundering".
And what's wrong with anonymity? Whose business is it where you move your money? Many Chinese emigrants have bypassed capital controls (not being allowed to take your money out of the country) using BTC or other cryptos.
In an age where privacy is being assaulted on all fronts, anything that helps anonymity deserves praise, he says, typing through a VPN.
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Thanks for the insight.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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No, money laundering is an old crime: the process of turning ill-gotten gains into legal funds that are easy to spend.
Suppose you sell drugs, and turn over $50K per week. That's all cash: used bills. You want to buy a car, you don't walk into a Ferrari dealership with $100,000 in used notes - questions will be asked, and it's a dead giveaway as far as law enforcement is concerned. You don't need that kind of attention, so you need to launder the money.
I'm not going to even try to describe how you do that; I haven't got a clue.
But the UN estimate is that between 2 and 5% or the global GDP is laundered every year: between $850 billion and $2.5 trillion per year!
And a large percentage of that - and growing - is cryptocurrency (most of it through two exchanges: Binance and Huobi)
And cryptocurrency isn't anonymous or private: all Bitcoin transactions are public, traceable, and permanently stored in the Bitcoin network.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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And it allows him to dodge income taxes. But, hey, it's "ok" because we pay too much tax anyway ... let the "honest folk suckers" bear the burden of the infrastructure on which to drive his Tesla.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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I doubt he dodges gasoline taxes or vehicle licensing fees, which is what pay for that infrastructure. He probably doesn't dodge income taxes either, but I'm not one to criticize those who dodge highwaymen.
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Your "blinkers" missed who I was referring to.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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I thought you were referring to Elon Musk.
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No insight.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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Greg Utas wrote: He probably doesn't dodge
When you two say dodge are you actually mis-spelling doge(coin)[^].
Just not sure. 
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 No, but I think they picked a good name.
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By "invented", I mean that laundering only became a chargeable crime recently. The crime that yielded the proceeds should be punished. But some folks think punishments for those crimes are too light, so they invent new crimes that can be piled on to run up a prison term.
You're right that cryptos aren't completely private. They can be traced by following a chain of transactions into, or out of, an address whose owner has already been identified.
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Recently? Not quite: 1980's / 1990s for most countries, including the US (Money Laundering Control Act 1986) and Canada (Proceeds of Crime [Money Laundering] Act 1991)
And don't forget - Al Capone was only caught for tax evasion on his laundered money! 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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That's recent in my books.
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Laundering is a "vehicle"; you're overthinking it.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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OriginalGriff wrote: You don't need that kind of attention, so you need to launder the money.
I'm not going to even try to describe how you do that; I haven't got a clue.
After 3 seasons watching Ozark, I'm still mostly clueless. 
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One way they launder money in Canada: Quebec and British Columbia "provincial" gambling casinos (and lotteries) that have been ignoring (table) limits. The provincial governments have been some of the worst enablers.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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Owning the casino is an even better way of doing it ...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Silk Road, etc.
And we ain't talking Marco Polo.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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"liquidate" the payment... isn't Bitcoin about the most liquid form of currency anyway? Accepted at outlets globally, no inter-national conversion involved.
Why is holding on to Bitcoin any different than me holding on to a £20 note? Couldn't you turn this on its head and say "Tesla take cash payments, but sometimes put it in the bank without converting it to Bitcoin immediately"? At some points in the past, doing that would have been the sensible thing to do (in retrospect) with Bitcoin growing in value so fast.
So long as Bitcoin (or other virtual currencies) are seen purely as a transactional device rather than having intrinsic value, then crypto-currency will never really become mainstream. To support that, national Governments will need to accept balance sheets that include crypto assets and include it in tax calculations etc.
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I don't think they'll actually "hold" it.
On the one hand they're trying to make kleptocurrency sound "legit" (by hyping dodgecoin), but they'll dump it as soon as someone transacts with it ... at the same time facilitating any laundering.
When you're already worth "billions", are you seriously going to hope to make a few more by sitting on it when the chances of it loosing value are perhaps more likely.
Your £20 will still be £20, more or less, a few months from now; can't say the same for your BTC that you exchanged for goods that you manufactured and paid your suppliers and workers for (with £20 notes).
Call me cynical ... and Warren Buffet a dummy.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
modified 13-Feb-21 6:32am.
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OK, you're cynical.
And Warren Buffett is a good investor but a dummy when it comes to money. Have you ever read what he's said about gold? It must be daddy issues, because his father was a senator and an advocate for the gold standard. But Warren could end up being right about BTC.
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