[HN Gopher] Square buys $170M worth of bitcoins
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Square buys $170M worth of bitcoins
        
       Author : undefined1
       Score  : 65 points
       Date   : 2021-02-23 21:27 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
        
       | cecida wrote:
       | I've reached the consensus that any company investing in Bitcoin
       | doesn't actually care about the future of the planet.
        
         | RIMR wrote:
         | I view it more along the lines of business owners being more
         | and more willing to take company funds to the casino.
        
           | tinus_hn wrote:
           | In most casino games you can't really influence you chances
           | of winning
        
         | missedthecue wrote:
         | How would this be different from saying that anyone who drives
         | an SUV or plays computationally intense computer games doesn't
         | care about the future of the planet?
         | 
         | If it isn't different, is it really that much of an insightful
         | statement beyond _" people tend to do what they think is their
         | own personal self interest"_?
        
           | rscho wrote:
           | There's a gradation in carelessness and selfishness,
           | though...
        
           | wmf wrote:
           | You can choose to drive an electric car or a gas car.
           | Likewise you can choose to use PoS coins or PoW coins.
        
         | pavlov wrote:
         | Personally I agree. It's a signal that a company is run by
         | people whose values are fundamentally different than mine.
         | 
         | I've bought a Tesla in the past and was mostly happy with it,
         | but I'll never get another one. (I'm sure they won't miss my
         | business, as Musk's antics are presumably gaining them many
         | enthusiastic customers. Still, buying elsewhere is the only
         | power we customers have.)
        
           | totheloop wrote:
           | Hacker News discussions always mention Bitcoin's energy
           | usage, but fail to consider a couple points about this: for
           | example, the 2nd-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, is moving
           | to a model that will use a fraction of the electricity it
           | currently does, and that mining is a far smaller pressure to
           | migrate the renewable grid than other industrial uses of
           | energy. It is, basically, an unconsidered meme. I suggest you
           | do some research on the topic; the Tesla you drive (I drive
           | an EV, too) needs a renewable grid, too.
        
         | totheloop wrote:
         | This is the first company for whom you've reached this
         | conclusion...and Bitcoin was the forcing function? Never heard
         | of BP or Shell?
        
         | bottled_poe wrote:
         | I feel they also underestimate the ability for governments to
         | ban cryptocurrency completely.
        
         | offby37years wrote:
         | Here is a great example of the power of misinformation at work
         | folks.
        
       | hahahahe wrote:
       | So they're buying bitcoins with the money generated from their
       | payment business. This is far worse than any toys Zuckerberg ever
       | bought for Facebook (except for Libre).
        
       | mancerayder wrote:
       | Aren't a lot of companies buying BTC as a way to help their
       | perception of growth, given BTC is going up? Square is a payment
       | system, sure, but a bunch of non payment system companies are
       | doing the same.
       | 
       | If companies invest in BTC instead of growing themselves and
       | hiring people, isn't that bad for the economy?
        
         | federona wrote:
         | So very strange to invest so heavily in Bitcoin a highly
         | volatile crypto at its peak. Not to mention an old generation
         | crypto with dubious value on the face of 3rd generation crypto
         | that does not damage the environment and does not have the same
         | scaling issues. It's like considering some old tech as which
         | has dubious value just because it was invented first. Like
         | overvaluing a gas car when an electric exists and is the wave
         | of the future. What do these companies know that we plebs
         | don't.
        
           | Melting_Harps wrote:
           | > So very strange to invest so heavily in Bitcoin a highly
           | volatile crypto at its peak.
           | 
           | Doenst seem like that's the case here at all, Square buys
           | lots of Bitcoin as they offer it via CASH. Also, they didn't
           | buy at the peak if they expect it to go higher in value,
           | which Jack of all the billionaire class knows why and how it
           | will.
           | 
           | > Not to mention an old generation crypto with dubious value
           | on the face of 3rd generation crypto that does not damage the
           | environment and does not have the same scaling issues. It's
           | like considering some old tech as which has dubious value
           | just because it was invented first.
           | 
           | Ok, this is starting to make sense now...
           | 
           | > Like overvaluing a gas car when an electric exists and is
           | the wave of the future. What do these companies know that we
           | plebs don't.
           | 
           | Horrible analogy, but it's an opportunity to explain relative
           | value theory I understand cars better than most here by a
           | large margin, short of being an engineer, as in designed
           | stuff for OEMs, I've done just about everything you can do in
           | the auto industry, including Motorpsorts. In both ICE and EV
           | programs, btw.
           | 
           | And teh fatc that you will never understand why pristine a
           | Toyota 2000GT, or Ferrari 250 GT California will be coveted
           | whether it's driven or not shows what a shallow understanding
           | of the analogy that you're trying to describe is.
           | 
           | Value and worth are relative concepts, and while I KNOW
           | bitcoin's utility is superior to fiat in every conceivable
           | way as I helped built solutions with this tech that fiat
           | could not do, that led to monumental legislation and
           | reversals of laws that we all deal with every day it
           | underscores that utility is relative to it's users. Square
           | has lots of fiat, it lost value on its stock today, in a DCA
           | model I bet their BTC holdings is still in double if not
           | triple digit returns given how early they got in in the high
           | hundereds if I recall correctly. And Jack was playing with
           | this tech pretty early, he never gave any dates buy its safe
           | to say he was in before the 2013's rally that made all the
           | non-tech people take even care.
           | 
           | So, what dubious value are you talking about here? It made
           | their earnings hold value when the OVERTLY manipulated stock
           | price dipped this week.
        
           | thebean11 wrote:
           | > at its peak
           | 
           | All time high yes, but we don't know that this is a peak
        
             | wmf wrote:
             | But these companies don't know it's not the peak either.
             | Buying the dip, as the kids say, is more defensible.
        
           | noneeeed wrote:
           | As always I feel rather behind the times with crypto. What
           | are the third generation ones? Does etherium count as second
           | gen?
        
             | joshspankit wrote:
             | ETH can certainly be called second gen. NFTs have ETH
             | contracts underneath.
        
           | joshspankit wrote:
           | > At it's peak
           | 
           | They said the same thing at $100.
           | 
           | If BTC was USD$1m per, that would make a satoshi one US cent.
           | _To me_ that makes 1m the hard psychological limit, not 50k
           | or 100k.
        
             | federona wrote:
             | I don't mean real peak, I simply mean cyclic peak. It will
             | fall and rise higher, but why buy on high when it's going
             | to go back to low which is almost guaranteed with something
             | like crypto.
        
           | Erlich_Bachman wrote:
           | You can do a much much more deep fundamental analysis than a
           | simple checking {if price_at_ATH then..}. Many of the
           | companies have likely done such deeper analysis.
        
       | chemmail wrote:
       | I wonder why it took so long, Dorsey has always been in bed with
       | Blockstream
        
       | natas wrote:
       | pump and dump
        
       | schmorptron wrote:
       | I was really confused for a bit about what a video game developer
       | wanted to do with bitcoin, turns out it's a different Square.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | rcavezza wrote:
       | I'm not sure I've ever seen a one sentence news story before.
        
       | sschueller wrote:
       | I wonder if companies are viewing bitcoin in a similar way as
       | currencies? I don't know how common this is in the US but in
       | Europe specifically Switzerland larger companies buy and hold
       | Euros and Dollars to deal with currency fluctuations.
       | 
       | Maybe its just speculating that bitcoin will bring in money. It
       | worked for Tesla.
        
         | federona wrote:
         | Is it easy to convert a billion for a hundred million of btc to
         | cash as it is to buy a stock? I don't think this is it or usd
         | or euro.
        
       | electriclove wrote:
       | I'm surprised to see so much negativity in regards to these
       | headlines about Bitcoin. I expect to see more and more companies
       | doing the same and diversifying their holdings partially away
       | from the USD.
        
       | notJim wrote:
       | What is the actual purpose of buying BTC? Tesla also bought some
       | recently, IIRC. I assume that large publicly-traded companies
       | aren't doing this for the memes, and it seems tangential to their
       | actual businesses. Do they also trade other equities/assets?
        
         | missedthecue wrote:
         | I can't make heads or tails of it either. Some people have been
         | speculating that it's because they want to take payments in
         | BTC, but I don't see building massive positions in it helps
         | them facilitate that.
        
         | pvarangot wrote:
         | I think there's two purposes:
         | 
         | - They have cash, and want to cover against inflation
         | 
         | - They want to eventually accept payments or provide
         | withdrawals or pay salaries or bonuses in crypto, and they need
         | to stock up to be able to have or provide liquidity
        
         | Erlich_Bachman wrote:
         | Investment. Any large company has a stack of cash on hand, this
         | is just required for operations. Traditionally many of them
         | have been putting that cash into government bonds. Lately when
         | many bonds have negative yields, it becomes more and more
         | stupid to hold money in bonds for every year of guaranteed lost
         | money in them.
        
       | endisneigh wrote:
       | If it ends up that 40 years from now quantum computing can beat
       | all present-day encryption methods, would the bitcoin price
       | instantly just go to zero? Is there anyway to retroactively make
       | it more secure with tomorrow's cryptography?
       | 
       | EDIT: I only ask this because if the world becomes more and more
       | dependent on the blockchain and quantum computing becomes an
       | existential threat, the existence of blockchain-breaking
       | computation could potentially result in a global catastrophe. I
       | compare quantum computing in this scenario to a device that can
       | just magically take money away from you without your knowledge.
       | Given that this obviously hasn't happened yet, I'm curious what
       | mitigation strategies exist now. Thanks everyone for your
       | replies.
       | 
       | disclaimer: I believe it's just a matter of time before all
       | current (2021) encryption is broken. whether that happens in 2060
       | or 3000 obviously is TBD, but it's a matter of _when_ not _if_
       | IMHO.
        
         | dylkil wrote:
         | yes, you can fork the network to use a new hashing algorithm
        
         | kube-system wrote:
         | I would hate to be a scientist working on quantum computing
         | when there is so much wealth to be threatened by their success.
         | Sounds like a quick way to meet the mafia.
        
           | missedthecue wrote:
           | I think the threat would be less from billionaires and big
           | companies. Their fortunes get disrupted, accumulated and lost
           | all the time. If such a threat to those researchers exists,
           | it is likely from intelligence agencies around the world.
        
         | trident5000 wrote:
         | Vitalik Buterin himself said sha256 is likely not hackable by
         | quantum computing, certainly not any time soon. If it is then
         | consensus or a fork is needed to change the security.
        
           | bottled_poe wrote:
           | Wow not a crypto founder himself. He wouldn't have a conflict
           | of interest would he?
        
             | Erlich_Bachman wrote:
             | Vitalik is not only extremely smart, has many times
             | demonstrated his abilities, but has also shown himself to
             | be incredibly honest and straight-forward kind of guy when
             | it comes to public utterances. Can you find even a couple
             | of times when he has misled or lied to the public, even a
             | bout a small thing? He comments on technical issues and
             | engineering problems, things he knows a thing or two about.
        
           | nickysielicki wrote:
           | Just because he developed ethereum doesn't mean he has any
           | idea what is going on in quantum computing. Whatever we've
           | seen out of the private sector in terms of quantum computing
           | is a total joke in the context of black budget NSA programs.
           | 
           | Nobody knows except the people doing it.
        
             | wmf wrote:
             | The whole field of quantum computer science would like a
             | word. It's possible to predict what quantum computers will
             | and won't be able to do.
        
             | trident5000 wrote:
             | Quantum computing is not incalculable. Solving sha256 by
             | traditional means would need the energy of the sun. Quantum
             | will only further the goal by so much. And Vitalik didnt
             | just invent ethereum he was/is a cryptography expert who
             | wrote many publications.
        
               | svachalek wrote:
               | Quantum is not just faster, it changes the problem from
               | being sub-exponential to logarithmic.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm
        
         | chemmail wrote:
         | Quantum computing gives near infinite parallelization. It does
         | not solve/break serialized equations/problems.
        
         | Erlich_Bachman wrote:
         | They would just switch to another algorithm. Sad for all the
         | miners who bought ASICs, doesn't change a thing for all users
         | and investors. It would just be a hard-fork. It would not be
         | the first one, and it would very likely be quite a consensual
         | one, since no user wants their transactions to be unsecured.
         | 
         | I really wish people would research a bit more before posting
         | these questions here. The quantum computing argument has been
         | asked a thousands times before, it was first seen shortly after
         | the bitcoin paper was published, it has been answered and re-
         | answered and re-answered so many times, everywhere. And yet
         | here we are filling the internet with more and more copies...
        
           | Retric wrote:
           | The issue is the private keys become vulnerable not just the
           | hashing algorithm. If 3/4th of Bitcoins are in lost wallets
           | in 1,000 years those instantly flood the market once someone
           | can discover them from the old public keys. You can't
           | distinguish between someone that's kept a wallet inactive for
           | all this time and someone discovering a private key.
           | 
           | Which means you need to fork early and abandon any wallets
           | that don't do a transaction with the new system. That's not
           | the kind of transition that works with just the miners
           | involved.
        
             | Erlich_Bachman wrote:
             | You can trivially distinguish those transactions from real
             | ones. In fact so trivial that you could do it in one if
             | clause                   #define
             | LATEST_BLOCK_BEFORE_EMERGENCE_OF_QC 76283747           #
             | fill in number when that happens              if
             | (block_height>LATEST_BLOCK_BEFORE_EMERGENCE_OF_QC) {
             | # Treat transaction as invalid if it still uses SHA256
             | }
             | 
             | You know transactions are timestamped through the medium of
             | being included in a block, right?
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | You don't understand, this has nothing to do with SHA256
               | for mining after crypto. You need to sign a transaction
               | with a private key. Quantum crypto makes all current
               | private keys public.
               | 
               | This means you need to pick some date where everyone with
               | a private key needs to create a new key under a new
               | system. Then _before_ quantum crypto is available they
               | need to make this transaction from their old wallet using
               | an old key to a new wallet with a new secure private key.
               | And they need to do this before quantum crypto is
               | available.
        
               | Erlich_Bachman wrote:
               | Yes? That's exactly what they'll do.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | How and when? People are working on quantum crypto right
               | now and as far as anyone know someone could literally
               | break Bitcoin tomorrow February 24th 2020. It seems
               | unlikely, but the same could be said for every day until
               | it happens.
        
         | jude- wrote:
         | Yes -- the network could soft-fork to require post-quantum
         | transaction signatures. Naively, you could make it so that each
         | transaction would put the hash of its parties' post-quantum
         | signatures in an OP_RETURN output, and distribute both the
         | transaction and the post-quantum signatures to the network.
         | Miners would package the transactions into blocks, and
         | separately validate them with the associated post-quantum
         | signatures and distribute them as ancillary block data (e.g.
         | the coinbase transaction could contain a Merkle tree root that
         | authenticates all the block's extra post-quantum signature
         | data).
        
         | reidjs wrote:
         | If that happens I'm pretty sure we have much larger problems
         | than someone stealing your bitcoins
        
           | RIMR wrote:
           | Strong encryption turning into weak encryption is a severe
           | problem, but it's a manageable and resolvable one also. The
           | ease of exploiting quantum encryption-breaking might not be
           | comparable to exploiting a public ledger of trust like the
           | blockchain.
           | 
           | If BTC has a multi-trillion-dollar market cap, and quantum
           | exploitation occurs, the only thing that backs the currency
           | (trust) vanishes, and the values quickly drops to zero.
           | 
           | If we are reliant on BTC for global finances in the future,
           | as many are proposing, this could result in a global
           | depression.
           | 
           | This might be the single biggest problem quantum computing
           | could bring us, short of the "talking to alternate universes"
           | theoretical use cases some people are talking about (that
           | probably won't happen).
           | 
           | Encrypted data can be re-encrypted to be quantum-secure. The
           | vulnerability is temporary
           | 
           | A compromised blockchain dies forever. A brand new quantum-
           | secure blockchain would need to be invented.
        
             | Erlich_Bachman wrote:
             | Look up the term "fork" in the context of cryptocurrencies.
             | It will answer all your questions and you will save
             | yourself a lot of brain cycles.
        
               | echelon wrote:
               | If crypto is broken, any fork could be broken too.
               | 
               | It's a question of how much time a new algorithm buys.
        
           | dzader wrote:
           | when*
        
         | jackson1442 wrote:
         | Presumably there could be another fork like there was with BTC
         | vs Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
        
           | nickysielicki wrote:
           | If the discrete logarithm problem turns out to be not so
           | difficult, the entire concept of proof of work is
           | meaningless. There is no patch or fork that can possibly fix
           | that.
        
             | darawk wrote:
             | Proof of work does not depend on the DLP. It depends on
             | SHA.
        
               | nickysielicki wrote:
               | PoW is just a filter to prevent denial of service
               | attacks, to ensure that if you're a bad actor, you'll
               | waste electricity to send bogus messages.
               | 
               | But if the DLP is easy, then anyone can fabricate proper
               | ECDSA sigs, and you're not wasting electricity to send
               | _bogus_ messages, you 're wasting electricity to send
               | valid messages.
               | 
               | The point I was trying to make is that there is no
               | migration path from ECDSA. You can't fork bitcoin if the
               | DLP is easy. It's just game over. Proof of work becomes
               | irrelevant.
        
             | Erlich_Bachman wrote:
             | That's just not correct. There are plenty of crypto
             | algorithms already, including hash functions, that are
             | designed to be resistant/resilient against a functional
             | quantum computer. A PoW scheme can use any (well, at the
             | very least many) of them.
             | 
             | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography
        
         | Vecr wrote:
         | No, only the signatures would be at risk, and the fix would be
         | quite simple. Create a new address type that's quantum-secure,
         | then have everyone move their coin over. After practical breaks
         | start happening, disable the old signature type.
        
         | arcticfox wrote:
         | In short, yes it's possible to secure, but it'd be a project.
         | Like securing everything else against QC
         | 
         | https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Quantum_computing_and_Bitcoin
        
         | RIMR wrote:
         | If Bitcoin doesn't destroy itself somehow, quantum computing
         | will be the destruction of the modern blockchain. Quantum
         | Bitcoins might be possible, but developing a quantum blockchain
         | before traditional Bitcoin can be exploited by the same tech is
         | highly unlikely, so any Bitcoins today will almost certainly
         | never become quantum Bitcoins.
         | 
         | I don't think there is any feasible way you could ever convert
         | the Bitcoin blockchain into a quantum variant, even if you set
         | a hard sunset date before any exploitation could occur. You
         | would have to start from the ground up and completely reinvent
         | the wheel.
        
         | tomerico wrote:
         | Bitcoin is vulnerable in two ways:
         | 
         | 1. The oldest (and largest) wallets directly stored their
         | public key on the blockchain. This would mean that attackers
         | could transfer money away from these wallets (many of them are
         | dormant).
         | 
         | 2. Relatively early, the blockchain shifted to only storing the
         | hash of the public key, which seems less susceptible to a
         | quantum computing attack. The risk in these wallets is that
         | once you want to transfer bitcoins out, you need to temporarily
         | publish your public key - this key is not stored on the
         | blockchain, but might be stored by future attackers. In
         | addition, at some point getting your private key will be so
         | fast that the moment you publish a transaction request you'll
         | many fake requests asking to transfer to another wallet.
         | 
         | The solution is likely a soft fork - new addresses that are
         | quantum resistant (similar to how in the past Bitcoin moved
         | away from public key address into hash). The trick is that this
         | needs to be deployed before attacks exist, and people need to
         | transfer their Bitcoin into the new wallets.
        
           | Melting_Harps wrote:
           | > 1. The oldest (and largest) wallets directly stored their
           | public key on the blockchain. This would mean that attackers
           | could transfer money away from these wallets (many of them
           | are dormant).
           | 
           | That doesn't mean the Public key has ever been exposed online
           | and therefore not true. Look up cold storage best practices,
           | I'm not going to line it out for you but what you said is
           | entirely false and built on a flawed premise.
           | 
           | > 2. Relatively early, the blockchain shifted to only storing
           | the hash of the public key, which seems less susceptible to a
           | quantum computing attack. The risk in these wallets is that
           | once you want to transfer bitcoins out, you need to
           | temporarily publish your public key - this key is not stored
           | on the blockchain, but might be stored by future attackers.
           | In addition, at some point getting your private key will be
           | so fast that the moment you publish a transaction request
           | you'll many fake requests asking to transfer to another
           | wallet.
           | 
           | You started it off with a valid observation, but then led
           | into a non-sequitur, what does that have to do with Bitcoin's
           | vulnerability if as we just said 1 is not true if done
           | correctly.
           | 
           | > The trick is that this needs to be deployed before attacks
           | exist, and people need to transfer their Bitcoin into the new
           | wallets.
           | 
           | While I agree security on mainchain is an issue, we should
           | dhave had taproot long ago, and mixing by default by now as
           | tx fees get more and more expensive--all you're doing is
           | mixing it with other adddresses to make the sum
           | indistinguishable from it's source and that cost adds up as
           | the netowrk gets more expensive to operate on.
           | 
           | But also your premise is at odds with the fact that most of
           | the traffic will be done on LN moving forward, and the
           | bitcoin (token) will locked out of the network's mainchain
           | (Bitcoin) to operate on LN and thus does not require your
           | 'solution.'
           | 
           | In short, these are non-concerns.
           | 
           | Note how I didn't downvote you, and instead I challenged your
           | arguments in order for others to benefit from this
           | conversation, instead of being a child and downvoting simply
           | because I disagree with your points.
           | 
           | Edit: HAHA!
        
       | RIMR wrote:
       | What are they going to do with $160M worth of bitcoins?
        
         | lallysingh wrote:
         | Probably some BTC-related payment experiments.
        
         | nikolay wrote:
         | HODL!
         | 
         | Edit: Don't you have a sense of humor?!
        
           | belval wrote:
           | HN as a community does not have a high tolerance for short
           | reddit-like replies that could be considered funny. The
           | general opinion being that it lowers the overall quality of
           | the discussion.
        
             | nikolay wrote:
             | Well, sometimes a short reply like "HODL!" hodls (!)
             | paragraphs of meaning.
        
             | eroded wrote:
             | Have fun staying poor.
        
               | RIMR wrote:
               | If I had a Bitcoin for every time some crypto-gambler
               | dropped this line on the Internet, I would have more than
               | the maximum number of Bitcoins that will ever be minted.
               | 
               | Everyone has a story about how Bitcoin could have made
               | them a billionaire. Only like 2 people actually got that
               | rich.
               | 
               | You folks are playing the lottery. If you win, good for
               | you, but everyone not gambling is still doing better than
               | everyone gambling.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | belval wrote:
               | I am puzzled by the meaning of your reply, what does HN
               | guidelines have to do with my personal wealth?
               | 
               | Unless you mean HN has a website will "stay poor" due to
               | a lack of users in which case I highly recommend reading
               | up on YCombinator and its founders.
        
         | TylerE wrote:
         | Well, in a few months they'll have $100m of bitcoins. Maybe
         | $50m.
        
           | eroded wrote:
           | Lol!
        
         | tryptophan wrote:
         | Waste their investor's money.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | nikolay wrote:
       | Copycats. I guess, their business isn't doing so great if they
       | try to speculate with their cash instead of beating competition,
       | which is growing daily!
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | qeternity wrote:
       | Square pays $170m for $160m worth of Bitcoin
        
       | DenisM wrote:
       | My guess they are rolling out btc payments and bought some amount
       | to cover transaction delays or rollbacks.
        
         | oafertino wrote:
         | This feels like the most rational reason - the other would
         | reason would be trading BTC with shareholder money so let's
         | hope you're right.
        
       | hntrader wrote:
       | Isn't it a conflict of interest for Dorsey to make such a market
       | moving purchase, as an agent of Square, in an asset that he is
       | personally invested in? I guess we'll have to wait and see the
       | rationale of the purchase. If it's to facilitate payments on
       | their platform, then no biggie.
        
         | really3452 wrote:
         | CEO's do this all the time with the US dollar and no one blinks
         | an eye.
        
           | CamelCaseName wrote:
           | This would be more akin to the BP CEO buying oil futures and
           | then announcing output cuts.
        
         | trident5000 wrote:
         | Nope
        
         | TheBlight wrote:
         | Meh 170m isn't really that market moving for bitcoin these
         | days.
        
           | hntrader wrote:
           | It's not just the direct market impact from the size of the
           | trade, but the signal to the market of yet another big
           | company getting involved which causes others to initiate a
           | trade.
        
             | joshspankit wrote:
             | Came here because of this exact point.
             | 
             | We're going hockey-stick! (At least for a little bit)
        
         | jozen wrote:
         | Maybe. Definitely not illegal though.
        
         | Melting_Harps wrote:
         | > Isn't it a conflict of interest for Dorsey to make such a
         | market moving purchase, as an agent of Square, in an asset that
         | he is personally invested in? I guess we'll have to wait and
         | see the rationale of the purchase. If it's to facilitate
         | payments on their platform, then no biggie.
         | 
         | No, and Jack is a big proponent of Bitcoin and has offered
         | buying/selling via CASH. He has been saying he's maxed out cash
         | app's buying service since it's inception in 2018ish (?) with
         | no repercussions.
         | 
         | Furthermore, their purchase/holdings could represent the amount
         | outstanding Square has to have as reserves after daily
         | operations--Square is CASH's parent company, which allows for
         | the buying and selling of Bitcoin, not some IOU like Paypal.
         | 
         | I think they may be finally rolling out Bitcoin acceptances via
         | the Square POS system, ideally with LN (something Jack has
         | financed in the past). Something I wish we had during the
         | pandemic to allow small businesses to invest in and convert to
         | just keep the lights on, instead most got wiped out from
         | dealing with fiat and may never come back again. .
         | 
         | I just hope you guys on HN start to realize the 2 biggest names
         | in Fintech are already Bitcoiners, Jack has been for some time
         | but Elon (who was arguably more important than Thiel, who also
         | has Bitcoin investments, in making Paypal) has only recently
         | made it public, but was also at one time regarded as potential
         | person for who was 'Satoshi' for a reason. IN addition to the
         | Worlds richest person, or was until the Tesla stock dip this
         | week.
         | 
         | The SEC should have gone after Citadel, Melvin, Robinhood,
         | etc... instead they had what even one politician said was
         | 'political theater,' but they didn't and instead they go after
         | things that change the status quo, which this may be... or
         | until the status quo has adopted it in a way that it's
         | beneficial to them, and while it we (bitcoiners) would be
         | remiss to say we built this architecture for them, we knew one
         | day they would of out of self-interest join.
         | 
         | That's where are now. I'm not entirely convinced it's not them
         | lowering the price to get a better buy in position, both
         | Microstrategy and Tesla have enough to make the market move in
         | that direction. I'm just thankful they did and I got to buy
         | more on the way down.
         | 
         | I actually wonder if Coinbase offers this as a service, as in
         | you pay Coinbase XX million for services rendered and they
         | start dumping coins on the market to help its high net worth
         | buyers buy billions worth of bitcoin via OTC at a lower price.
         | But this is just unsubstantiated conjecture on my part, though
         | not entirely impossible. Then blame Kraken as plausible
         | deniability and rinse and repeat.
         | 
         | Edit: typical HN downvote brigade... I expected more from this
         | place, and felt that people would challenge the idea, not the
         | message/messenger.
        
       | rtx wrote:
       | Taking shareholders for a ride. Scamming people at two companies.
        
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