If I had to guess: Tesla will obviously create a self-contained payment system decoupled from global payment systems for Tesla Network, and will integrate all their other customer facing order systems into it as well.
I.e. Tesla intends to become a global bank as well.
Elon wanted X.com to become a bank in essence (later renamed to Paypal), but was vetoed by the other executives who considered it too risky a move.
Even with Tesla Network farther away, Tesla might be close to laying the groundwork for all that.
This will matter most for the full Tesla Network: AI-taxi users will be making small payments, and Tesla will want to cut out the middlemen banks that are eating up a significant percentage of small transaction revenue.
Mind = blown. Never thought about this before, but yes this makes perfect sense. Grabtaxi/WeChat etc. all have their own payment systems as well, but none of them have the vision + execution that Elon has, nor the global customer base that Tesla Network could potentially have.
So all those shorts crying that TSLA is becoming like a Bitcoin bubble, might one day wake up to realise Tesla Payments has made Bitcoin, PayPal, and banks obsolete? Still a long shot, but I'd love to live to see this day.
brb, going to adjust my TSLA bull case 2050 price target from $100.000 to $250.000