Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[StealthP3D]

I feel like you’re saying take my losses because I can write them off. I’ve never had taxable losses before. Everything I have is in tax differed retirement accounts. Can I write the Bitcoin losses off of my income?

I'm not saying that. Some people hold onto underwater investments hoping they will come above water so they can sell them at a profit or at least at break-even. I'm saying it's misguided to hold an investment based upon your purchase price. If you think the investment no longer has the promise you thought it once had, do not hesitate to sell it simply because it's underwater - the price you paid is irrelevant to your decision. All that matters is the current market value and your appraisal of it's potential future value. The only reason I add "except for tax considerations" is you might consider your cost basis if (for example) you are not ready to benefit from the capital loss yet. Humans hate to "lose" money so they tend to want to hold an underwater investment just so they don't feel they have lost money. It's one of many silly human traits that are common.

Of course if you think the depressed price is temporary, and it's not just wishful thinking that it will recover, then, sure, hold it. With crypto there's not a lot to go on. It's a gamble when you buy it and a gamble when you sell it. I'm not sure how anyone values the stuff.

 

[CorneliusXX]

What I “know” is Tesla bought a fungible commodity (Bitcoin) instead of holding cash. The purpose was an expected retention of capital and to experiment with the liquidity of the commodity. As an aside, Tesla allowed small purchases to be made with Bitcoin. It became obvious the energy cost for those small purchases was exorbitant and dirty, so it was curtailed. For such an insignificant change, there should be no material impact on TSLA or Bitcoin.

I also “know” Elon’s tweets are cryptic, ephemeral and he responds poorly when attacked. I have a lot riding on TSLA and a little on Bitcoin. Changing my years long willingness to allow latitude in both financial and personal actions by Tesla leadership, at this point, seems antithetical. HODL.

I'd expect to see continued attacks from the crypto community against Elon. The worst edges of the crypto community are far more rabid than the short seller community we normally see with Tesla. I've been invested in cryptos for nearly 10 years with varying levels of interest. I followed the conversation closely in 2016 around the blocksize debate and there were no punches pulled. People were using every dastardly trick to discredit eachother - bot spamming conversations, hacking, doxxing, getting moderators removed to control narratives, intentional lying to a level beyond what I have seen from standard Tesla shortsellers, reporting people to regulators/authorities where possible. Every dupe, hoodwink and conniving edge was used to discredit opponents. The actors in this space are tech natives whereas most of the short sellers rely on a CNBC interview or paying a few reporters to lie.

The value for cryptos at the moment is mostly driven by belief (IMO), although I believe the tech has great promise to replace substantial parts of the current financial ecosystem. Elon has brought an existential threat to the forefront of that belief system - it is not a sustainable store of value because it relies on bucket loads of dirty energy. The issue has always been known but is normally talked down or pushed into the future in favour of other topics. It is difficult for the world to ignore when Elon states he is taking real action against Bitcoin due to energy usage and it tarnishes the belief that Bitcoin can be a long term store of value if it is currently unsustainable.

I don't think it's a long term issue for Elon/Tesla and is likely to be a good thing for crypto (eventually) as it will force innovation towards sustainability. But I do expect to see some pretty wild attacks towards Elon in the short term.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Ultimately, it boils down to this:

If one man tweeting can crash or moon a crypto, then people should maybe reconsider just how good a store of value, or currency or whatever it actually is.

But I'm preaching to the choir here. The crypto bros won't listen to a thing I just said.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Moneyball on twitter. Battery prices are going up. It could be part of the reason Tesla is increasing vehicle prices.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1394140955276500992

 

[RobStark]

Interesting article. Bold by me....


Article is here

Seems to me that if you are gearing up for an EV future properly, you would expect that to become high volume quickly?

In the EV future $250k EV Roadsters and Limousines will still be low volume.

And high profit.

 

[RobStark]

IMO it would have been the better move to sell BTC and use the proceeds to fund another Gigafactory, to help the mission

I don’t understand these actions at all

Tesla hasn't started production of th 5th automotive GF because of a lack of human capital and management bandwith not because of a lack of cash.

 

[RobStark]

 

[UkNorthampton]

I am amazed how many Model Y’s and new “black trim” model 3’s I see every day here in the lower mainland of BC. I think together you almost see them more than Corrola’s and the like.

Perhaps Toyota drivers drive to get somewhere they HAVE to go & Tesla drivers find any excuse?

 

[lascavarian]

Elon just clarified Tesla hasn’t sold any more Bitcoin, causing it to rise 5% or so. Maybe they will cancel their cyber truck cancellations

Ahhhh, ransom ware at its best. That surely is another of cryptos several disasters once you get past the destroying the earth part.

Maybe we need a new app to tell what do.

The app that lets you pay to control another person's life

NewNew aims to connect artists with their fans who can vote on aspects of their work and daily life.

www.bbc.com

 

[mars_or_bust]

Elon just clarified Tesla hasn’t sold any more Bitcoin, causing it to rise 5% or so. Maybe they will cancel their cyber truck cancella

This is consistent with the earlier statement,,

In spite of all the drama the only real change is Tesla no longer accepting BTC payments for cars, apparently that is due to increased emissions, caused in part by more mining and the higher price ... (I may not have that 100% right .... this area is murky).

The implication is Tesla will accept BTC payments and sell BTC when emissions are lower, and.or Tesla will start accepting payments in Crypto coins with lower emissions.

So it is consistent with the mission, to deal with Tesla, Crypto communities need to embrace lower emissions...

My take is that the BTC community is inflexible and BTC is in efficient, but if we wait long enough, all Crypto will have low emissions.

In the meantime Tesla will continue to grow cash reserves and/or invest in new factories, they may diversify to hold other Crypto.
But we can expect the BTC position to stay relatively constant and smaller part of their liquid assets.

If there is an emergency need for more cash, they might have to sell BTC or raise capital, that scenario looks very unlikely.,

The entire BTC community has shown itself to be disappointingly inflexible, and more cult like than the most rabid Tesla fans Worse than TSLAQ, in fact.

It was indeed quite disappointing to see posts like the following from Adam Back, who is, in my opinion, 90% probably Satoshi himself:

Adam is not stupid though, and after BTC crashed (in large part due to his, and his minions hissy fits towards Elon), he did significantly tone down his attacks.

 

[22522]

By the time most of you will have woken up Elon will be at 55m followers. At this rate Elon will be at 90m followers on the 1st of April 2022. Still not an early April fools joke!

Market cap. I am a bear and here is the proof: Model assumes a p/e ratio of 50. That is a 1200% reduction on today.

You have to keep things sensible to avoid the dreaded quadrillion, which most people don't even think exists as a number. $0.125q just looks like a rounding error.

Elon has 55 million followers.

The MMA guy getting an apology from Elon about how slow they are is the best thing to happen to Tesla in the past year. Shifts focus. Gains customers. The guy said disrespect. Had the ring of truth. Someone needed to light a fire under Tesla. Could not have asked for better taunting. Attracts attention. Produces results. Message was on point, "Safe car."

 

[mrdoubleb]

So, I did something today... now all I need is for the SP to rise until August so i can minimize number of shares sold.

 

[H Mak]

"Revive your car when you grab a coffee as Costa installs rapid charging points​

Coffee chain seeks to seize on electric vehicle boom now as more drivers are no longer tied to petrol stations"



From today's Telegraph. Costa are aiming to install charge points at 200 of their locations in the UK. Well done Costa.

 

[jkirkwood001]

Bitcoin mining is not productive. Period.

I've never "invested" in crypto because I don't consider it investing. It's gambling. I invest in productivity and I've never understood what Elon saw in Bitcoin. I just figured he had his reasons that I couldn't see. Could it be that he doesn't like crypto because it doesn't represent true productivity any more than the US dollar or China's Yuan? We know he has a dim view of money compared to productivity. Money is only important because it represents productivity, even if that representation is far from perfect (Bitcoin able to be converted to USD is but one example).

I have no way to value Bitcoin (or Doge coin for that matter). Neither does anyone. It's like a stock without an underlying company. Let that sink in.

Agree. It's even more "useless" than gold, a familiar alternate to fiat, which at least has useful and unique physical properties.

Bitcoin is money for money's sake. Pure greed, not even functional like Etherium if my lay person's understanding is correct. Not inspiring at all IMHO.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I'd expect to see continued attacks from the crypto community against Elon. The worst edges of the crypto community are far more rabid than the short seller community we normally see with Tesla. I've been invested in cryptos for nearly 10 years with varying levels of interest. I followed the conversation closely in 2016 around the blocksize debate and there were no punches pulled. People were using every dastardly trick to discredit eachother - bot spamming conversations, hacking, doxxing, getting moderators removed to control narratives, intentional lying to a level beyond what I have seen from standard Tesla shortsellers, reporting people to regulators/authorities where possible. Every dupe, hoodwink and conniving edge was used to discredit opponents. The actors in this space are tech natives whereas most of the short sellers rely on a CNBC interview or paying a few reporters to lie.

The value for cryptos at the moment is mostly driven by belief (IMO), although I believe the tech has great promise to replace substantial parts of the current financial ecosystem. Elon has brought an existential threat to the forefront of that belief system - it is not a sustainable store of value because it relies on bucket loads of dirty energy. The issue has always been known but is normally talked down or pushed into the future in favour of other topics. It is difficult for the world to ignore when Elon states he is taking real action against Bitcoin due to energy usage and it tarnishes the belief that Bitcoin can be a long term store of value if it is currently unsustainable.

I don't think it's a long term issue for Elon/Tesla and is likely to be a good thing for crypto (eventually) as it will force innovation towards sustainability. But I do expect to see some pretty wild attacks towards Elon in the short term.

Bitcoin is like gold. It can store value, but it's inefficient for a payment system.

 

[Nocturnal]

I just wish Elon would ignore or avoid this sort of drama. It really is beneath him. I totally get the impulse for him to say "fine, I guess I'll sell it all out of spite" but that's not CEO talk. Of course anyone who has held TSLA for any period of time understands this is who Elon is. You get this petty stuff along with the brilliance.

Personally this feels like previous periods where Elon was under a crushing amount of stress and was acting out. Invariably we could tell when the company was about to take off when his mood changed. I hope we see that change happen soon.

Elon has 55 million followers.

The MMA guy getting an apology from Elon about how slow they are is the best thing to happen to Tesla in the past year. Shifts focus. Gains customers. The guy said disrespect. Had the ring of truth. Someone needed to light a fire under Tesla. Could not have asked for better taunting. Attracts attention. Produces results. Message was on point, "Safe car."

Agreed. That was extremely valuable advertising. The MMA guy's complaints came across as impatience vs hostility ("I need a safe car for my kid" like you mentioned). It reads as someone who is really impatient for an amazing new toy and Elon's simple "sorry we will get it to you soon" comment was a perfect response.

Moneyball on twitter. Battery prices are going up. It could be part of the reason Tesla is increasing vehicle prices.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1394140955276500992

It's getting impossible to buy nearly any durable good. I managed to grab a boat this month by buying it sight unseen. I also want a personal watercraft but there are literally zero available for sale anywhere near me. Between covid production impacts and post covid demand spikes we are going to see wonky stuff this year. People are going to start selling things they wouldn't have otherwise.

 

[H Mak]

I go on the news sites and everywhere it's Elon Musk/Bitcoin bla bla. I go on Twitter, (the majority of people I follow are for Tesla content) and it's all Bitcoin bla bla. Then I come on here.
Does Tesla still make cars?

 

[2daMoon]

The Tesla Economist reinforces a lot of what we know in a condensed presentation with a forward-looking wrap up.
Enjoy during the lull. It should help quell the relentless FUD some are on the verge of reacting to.

 

[elasalle]

I go on the news sites and everywhere it's Elon Musk/Bitcoin bla bla. I go on Twitter, (the majority of people I follow are for Tesla content) and it's all Bitcoin bla bla. Then I come on here.
Does Tesla still make cars?

Today should have been about the refresh S in parking lot. (it still is for me ... )
Having info that others are ignoring is an advantage.

 

[Christine69420]

Edit: Just a small glimpse of when Elon arrived. Mostly new footage from the construction work.