Elon Musk thinks paper money is going away and crypto will take its place

During an episode of ARK Invest's FYI podcast with Elon Musk the discussion veered away from Tesla and into Crypto. Musk's answers, though limited, were enlightening.

"Crypto, seriously?" he asked when the hosts brought it up. He laughed, recalling a time when crypto got him in trouble.

"Bitcoin and ethereum scammers were so rampant on Twitter I decided to join in and I said at one point wanna buy some bitcoin?" he said. "Then I got my account got suspended cause obviously there was like some automatic rule that if you try to sell bitcoin or something and I was just joking."

"I mean I think the bitcoin structure was quite brilliant. It seems like there's some merit to Ethereum as well, and maybe some of the others. But, you know, I'm not sure if it would be a good use of Tesla resources to get into crypto," he said. 

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"I think actually one of the downsides of crypto is that computationally, is that it's quite energy intensive. So there have to be some kind of constraints on the creation of crypto. So, but it's very energy intensive to create an incremental bitcoin at this point."

Musk said he likes cryptocurrency for its fluid ability to route around trouble.

"It bypasses currency controls," he said. "And crypto is a far better way to transfer value than pieces of paper. That's for sure. Without a doubt." 

"Just to clarify, Tesla's not going to start selling bitcoin?" asked interviewer Tasha Keeney.

"No we are not," said Musk.

About Author

John Biggs is an entrepreneur, consultant, writer, and maker. He spent fifteen years as an editor for Gizmodo, CrunchGear, and TechCrunch and has a deep background in hardware startups, 3D printing, and blockchain. His work has appeared in Men’s Health, Wired, and the New York Times. He runs the Technotopia podcast about a better future. He has written five books including the best book on blogging, Bloggers Boot Camp, and a book about the most expensive timepiece ever made, Marie Antoinette’s Watch. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Disclosure: Biggs owns and maintains cryptocurrencies in a private account and has been consulting with startups regarding blockchain-based products. He also edits and writes for startup clients.