BREAKDOWN: Et tu, Elon? What’s Really Behind Tesla’s Bitcoin Betrayal
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2021
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tesla has stopped accepting bitcoin due to environmental concerns – or so it says.
This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io and Bitstamp.
Crypto Twitter exploded last night when Elon Musk announced Tesla was backtracking and would no longer be accepting bitcoin as payment for cars. The debate came fast and furious about whether this was genuine environmental concern and, if so, how Elon was just discovering it now. On this episode, NLW looks at other interpretations, including:
- Elon playing 4D chess with the price
- The simple vagaries of an eccentric billionaire
- Pressure to remain in ESG portfolios
- Shifting government narratives
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. |
| 0:08.3 | It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. |
| 0:15.1 | The breakdown is sponsored by nexor.io and BitStamp and produced and distributed by CoinDes. |
| 0:24.6 | What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, |
| 0:31.9 | May 13th, and oh my God, let's bring you into my life yesterday. It's about 5 p.m. and I'm so excited because it's so very clear what the show was going to be about. Vitalik had pulled one of the |
| 0:36.7 | craziest moves I'd ever seen in |
| 0:38.9 | crypto, at once obvious and insane all at the same time. Here's the short version of the story. |
| 0:44.5 | There are a slew of dog coins, all variants on Shiba Inu's meant to be better doges. Think |
| 0:50.3 | doge with smart contracts. But really, they're obviously about pumping and monetizing a cultural |
| 0:55.1 | moment. So they had this weird approach to token economic design where they, quote unquote, |
| 1:00.0 | burned half their supply by sending it to Vitalik Buterin's public wallet. Basically, the thesis was |
| 1:05.8 | that he already has a ton of money, his ETH holdings recently surpassed a billion dollars, |
| 1:09.8 | so he would most likely just not |
| 1:11.4 | collect those tokens. The thing is, they didn't ask him, and they certainly didn't get his blessing, |
| 1:16.6 | and once they were there in his wallet, they were fully in his control. Well, yesterday those |
| 1:20.7 | tokens started moving. Vitalik sold and transferred on paper billions of dollars worth of tokens |
| 1:26.5 | to charity. Of course, they're pretty illiquid, |
| 1:28.7 | so it's actually not as much as it seems, but still, it was a crazy move. I think I'll discuss it |
| 1:33.5 | either tomorrow or on the weekly recap, but suffice it to say this was easily enough for a whole |
| 1:37.7 | show. But no, as it turns out, Vitalik's dog money would not be the only rug pulled yesterday. |
| 1:43.7 | Wednesday, May 12th, a day that |
| 1:45.4 | shall forever be known now as Rug Wednesday. E2, Elon? So let's dig into it. First, let's discuss |
... |
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