A recent tweet from Elon musk, producer of Tesla electric cars suggests the richest man in the world may be having a hard time receiving BTC as payment for his Tesla electric car. A few weeks back, Elon Musk announced to the world that he will be accepting BTC as payment for his highly-priced Tesla electric cars. That announcement sparkles a lot of debate among Crypto analysts. Some argued that his reason for choosing to accept BTC for a Tesla car was to have more BTC in-store and later resell for a higher price. Others simply thought it was a good idea to increase BTC adoption. But did Elon Musk knew anything about BTC apart from it being a store of value before thinking of accepting it as payment? I think he doesn't, if he does this kind of tweet about failed payment and missing money would not be happening to him. But yeah, this is happening to Elon, and the confusion is that there is no one to help him find the missing transaction.
Did Elon Musk know how BTC transaction works before thinking of accepting it as payment?
That's the question many Crypto analysts are debating across several Crypto forums. For me, I think the answer is a capital "NO". Elon Musk didn't know about the technical deficiencies of using BTC. His earlier investment in BTC was done solely for speculation and as a good store of value. What happened now is a justifiable reason for anyone to that Elon didn't know how BTC works. But what really happened? Let look at it technically.
From the tweet, it seems Elon musk was testing a new Crypto payment app he has built for Tesla. He or someone else sent a BTC transfer to the said app BTC address but no confirmation was received within the 30 transfer window. So he has to wait for the first block to even show something like a confirmation but nothing shows up.
The transaction couldn't be confirmed within the 30 minutes transfer window, the reason could be because there weren't enough fees paid to get it in a block within 30 minutes. So the money was stuck in mempool, Tesla can't confirm any payment and no clear feedback to the user about missing the transfer window. His conclusion about the experience was "Not good for adoption" nail it!
BTC transaction fee is what Elon musk has to deal with here, and when you think about paying for a Tesla car with BTC you know how high the transaction fees could be. The sender wasn't ready to pay that outrageous fee and so the money got stuck in mempool.
Elon musk didn't know about RBF as a way to get a stuck BTC transaction unstuck. RBF is a way for a sender to fix a stuck transaction if they are in a hurry to get their transaction through. Elon Musk didn't know that if a sender sets his fees too low, his block may take a very long time to make it into a block and confirm.
A Replay-by-fee RBF would have solved the problem but that would mean paying a higher transaction fee.
BCH can solve this BTC nonsense but will Elon musk think that way?
It is a known fact that BTC cannot scale and the higher transaction fees that keep going up makes it more unfit for daily use as payment for goods and services. But we have BCH that has been proven to be the best fit in this regard. Scalability and transaction fees are what make a digital currency viable as means of payment. BCH is scalable and its transaction fees are as low as no cost to anyone. If Elon musk thinks of accepting cryptocurrencies as payment for his Tesla electric cars, BCH is the best fit to do the job. But can he switch to BCH?
Not to be too sure, but I think Elon could potentially switch to BCH or at least add it to his portfolios or payment for Tesla cars. Based on his recent tweet exchange with Kim he already responded positively to the benefits of using BCH. And as a smart man Elon will eventually figure it out.
From the above tweet, it's clear that Elon has seen the technical deficiencies in using BTC, and would not want his brand to be associated with any kind of such experiences. How many times will they need assistance figuring out where the money went when it gets stuck.
The BTC conventional transaction fee for a $10k plus transfer is not lower than $10. That may not be a problem to some, but when Elon will want to add the ability to supercharge your car and pay in Bitcoin, it will become problematic. Nobody will be happy to pay a $10 fee for a $30 electricity refill.
With BCH, Elon could make more money for his Tesla cars. When someone is willing to pay a fee for a product, and there is no fee you could increase the price of that product a little, that's more gain.
Finally, Elon has seen for himself that BTC isn't good for adoption, and if enough people can't use BTC as payment, enough Tesla won't be sold so to say. BCH has been gaining adoption and it's been used and accepted as payment in most places worldwide. Elon got the best choice in BCH.
