Zephyrnet Logo

Fully Charged

Date:

John Bonini
Image Credit: Threshold Entertainment

Do I have a Twitter ($TWTR) alert set for every Elon Musk tweet?

Yes.

Do I pay attention to any not related to SpaceX launches or a new Tesla ($TSLA) model car?

No.

But what about Dogecoin ($DOGE.X), you ask?

Hard pass. Matt Levine says it better:

Dogecoin is GameStop stripped of all the distracting reality. No one on Reddit is going to publish a due diligence post about how the market undervalues Dogecoin’s cash hoard and customer loyalty. There are no Dogecoin shorts to squeeze, no Dogecoin options market makers to get caught in a gamma trap. The serious arguments for Bitcoin — its algorithmically enforced scarcity, its technological sophistication, its widespread adoption — are also conveniently missing. Dogecoin is just “if we buy this thing it will go up, so let’s buy it; also it will be fun and Elon Musk tweeted about it.”

Look, I understand that I have gotten stupider by typing all of that, and you have gotten stupider by reading it, but it’s gonna get worse. I do think it is pretty obvious that the internet is rewiring social relationships in profound ways, and that we are still in the early stages of that rewiring and the even earlier stages of trying to understand it. Money and value are artifacts of social relationships; why shouldn’t their meaning change as social media warps our brains and our society? Money and value are coordination games; what we use for money depends on the channels that we use to coordinate social activity. Once society was mediated by governments, and we used fiat currency. Now society is mediated by Twitter and Reddit and Elon Musk, so, sure, Dogecoin. Link

All things considered, I do like Bitcoin ($BTC.X).

My bitcoin holding is up 551.10%, and ether ($ETH.X) is up 313.34%.

I don’t care about daily price changes or HODL declarations, but I am glad that Tesla bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and that it will accept bitcoin as a payment method:

Tesla also said it will start accepting payments in bitcoin in exchange for its products “subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis.” That would make Tesla the first major automaker to do so. The $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin will give Tesla liquidity in the cryptocurrency once it starts accepting it for payments.

Tesla’s move into bitcoin represents an investment of a significant percentage of its cash in the investment. The company had more than $19 billion in cash and cash equivalents on hand at the end of 2020, according to its most recent filing.

The moves raise questions around CEO Elon Musk’s recent behavior on Twitter, where he has been credited for increasing the prices of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and dogecoin by posting positive messages that have encouraged more people to buy the digital currencies. Link

In the last decade, Tesla’s electric vehicle sales and market cap were perennially mocked: one for being too small and one for being too big.

All other automakers bragged about their monthly sales and cash flow, and profits.

Then last year, Tesla’s market cap took off like a SpaceX rocket, except its stock price never fell back to Earth.

And suddenly, every Wall Street analyst changed their tune to be the first to justify an ever-increasing price target on Tesla’s stock.

One of my favorite quotes, whose origin I don’t know, is, “Companies don’t miss analysts’ estimates, analysts miss on their company estimates.

During last night’s Super Bowl, I mostly read, rarely lifting my head at the TV.

But I did recognize Will Ferrell’s voice during the General Motors ($GM) ad.

Impressive, GM, you want to go all-electric?

Actor Will Ferrell is fired up about Norway and we don’t blame him. We admire his passion for EVs, just as much as we support Norway’s pursuit of an all-electric future. GM’s commitment to creating a future world with zero emissions means we need to bring Everybody In.

As highlighted in the spot, Norway has more EVs per capita than any other country. 54 percent of new vehicles sold are electric. Some of the country’s early adoption can be attributed to actions Norway took that encourage EV ownership and promote a charging infrastructure. Link

I guess I’m waiting for GM’s press release that it will start accepting bitcoin.

This month, the most all-American of all vehicles, Ford’s ($F) F-150, had its production cut:

While the shortages are hitting the entire industry, the F-150 is a big deal in the US, where the iconic F-series is the bestselling vehicle in the country. They’re also Ford’s most profitable vehicles, so making fewer of them isn’t likely to be a decision the motor company would make unless it had to.

We here at The Verge often ask the question “what’s a computer?” but I suspect most people wouldn’t answer “the F-150.” But modern cars have computer systems for almost every component these days, from digital speedometers to vital vehicle functions like controlling emissions and emergency brake systems. If Ford, or other car manufacturers, isn’t able to get the computer chips it needs, it won’t be able to build functioning modern cars.

Of course, the chip shortages aren’t just hitting the car industry — AMD, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Sony were famously not able to meet demand with their launches last year, and Qualcomm’s CEO is warning that it’s not just the latest, highest-tech products that will see shortages. Link

To paraphrase The Simpsons, suddenly, technology (not beer) is the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.

But what Tesla and Bitcoin have in common is that sometimes building something from scratch has its long-term advantages.

Yes, a Tesla has four wheels, and bitcoin can have a sender and a receiver.

But its other parts are very different. And change is scary.

Sure, adoption is always slow at first.

Then a gold rush or mania ensues:

There is nothing about the finances of Blink Charging Co. ($BLNK) that would suggest it’s one of the hottest stocks in America.

It’s never posted an annual profit in its 11-year history; it warned last year it could go bankrupt; it’s losing market share, pulls in anemic revenue and has churned through management in recent years.

And yet a hot stock it is. Investors have bid Blink’s share price up 3,000% over the past eight months. Only seven stocks — out of about 2,700 that are worth at least $1 billion — have risen more over that time. The reason: Blink is a green-energy company, an owner and operator of charging stations that power up electric vehicles. And if investors are certain of one thing in the mania that is sweeping through financial markets, it is that green companies are can’t-miss, must-own investments of the future. Link

Could Blink’s market cap go, poof, in the blink of an eye?

Maybe.

I don’t know.

If there’s a company that’s more on my radar now, it’s Cree ($CREE).

On Google Finance, company descriptions, for some reason, redirect to Wikipedia:

Cree, Inc. is an American manufacturer and marketer of semiconductors. Link

Time for me to learn about Cree.

First, I need to recharge.

Source: https://medium.com/@johnbonini/fully-charged-98628d9179dc?source=rss——-8—————–cryptocurrency

spot_img

Latest Intelligence

spot_img