{"id":469324,"date":"2021-02-19T07:23:14","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T05:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=469324"},"modified":"2021-02-19T07:24:02","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T05:24:02","slug":"musk-defends-tesla-bitcoin-move-says-token-less-dumb-than-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/469324\/musk-defends-tesla-bitcoin-move-says-token-less-dumb-than-cash\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk defends Tesla Bitcoin move, says token less dumb than cash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk called Tesla Inc\u2019s $1.5 billion Bitcoin bet an \u201cadventurous enough\u201d investment for the company, after one of the industry\u2019s loudest acolytes called out the billionaire\u2019s advocacy of lesser-known Dogecoin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHaving some Bitcoin, which is simply a less dumb form of liquidity than cash, is adventurous enough for an S&amp;P500 company,\u201d Musk wrote in a tweet, in response to a Bloomberg TV interview with Binance Holdings Ltd CEO Changpeng Zhao.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla took both the corporate world and the cryptocurrency space by storm when it announced this month it had put $1.5 billion of cash into Bitcoin.<\/p>\n<p>That prompted a surge in Bitcoin\u2019s price and has fueled talk about the risks and benefits of adding cryptocurrencies to corporate balance sheets.<\/p>\n<p>Zhao had said in the interview he\u2019s surprised that Musk is a fan of Dogecoin, which has outperformed Bitcoin this year. Musk, the founder of Tesla and the world\u2019s richest man, has tweeted multiple times about the Shiba Inu-themed cryptocurrency started as a joke in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>And Binance has recently added Dogecoin futures on its platform to satisfy new liquidity demand.<\/p>\n<p>Zhao wondered in his interview why Tesla opted to buy Bitcoin if Musk is so \u201cgung-ho\u201d on Dogecoin. His remarks prompted Musk to explain the move by Tesla, which is also planning to accept Bitcoin as a payment method.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen fiat currency has negative real interest, only a fool wouldn\u2019t look elsewhere,\u201d Musk wrote in his two-part tweet. \u201cBitcoin is almost as bs as fiat money. The key word is \u2018almost.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">&#8220;I&#8217;m surprised that Elon&#8217;s so gung-ho on Doge coin,&#8221; says Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, world\u2019s largest <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/cryptocurrency?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#cryptocurrency<\/a> exchange by volume, which launched futures for <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%24DOGE&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">$DOGE<\/a>. But he notes that <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@elonmusk<\/a>&#8216;s Tesla bet $1.5 billion on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Bitcoin<\/a>, not Dogecoin <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/POz36hPpC9\">https:\/\/t.co\/POz36hPpC9<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oxjI9U0SQa\">pic.twitter.com\/oxjI9U0SQa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bloomberg (@business) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/business\/status\/1362582677199622145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 19, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The optimism over institutional interest, among other factors, has helped Bitcoin surge more than 400% over the past year. Binance is raking in new users at its fastest pace ever as Bitcoin tops $50,000.<\/p>\n<p>The exchange behemoth has been attracting more than 300,000 new user registrations on a day to day basis, sustaining levels above a previous peak in 2017, Zhao said in the interview.<\/p>\n<p>Binance\u2019s own token BNB has also outperformed Bitcoin, though Zhao noted it comes with higher risk than the largest cryptocurrency as well, comparing their volatility levels.<\/p>\n<p>Binance Coin started as a loyalty program incentivizing user trades but now powers the decentralized applications on Binance\u2019s own blockchain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a lot more activity now in this industry than three years ago,\u201d said Zhao, who also goes by CZ. \u201cWe are just at the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/technology\/469012\/first-tesla-model-x-will-arrive-in-south-africa-next-week\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">First Tesla Model X will arrive in South Africa next week<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk called Tesla Inc\u2019s $1.5 billion Bitcoin bet an \u201cadventurous enough\u201d investment for the company, after one of the industry\u2019s loudest acolytes called out the billionaire\u2019s advocacy of lesser-known Dogecoin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":255557,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[5537,7445,26],"class_list":["post-469324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-bitcoin","tag-dogecoin","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469324"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":469340,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469324\/revisions\/469340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}