Bitcoin keeps failing at this ‘future of money’ thing

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a Bitcoin pizza of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Bitcoin’s [use case crumbles](. - Trump: now with [more legal trouble](. - The Fed has [reason to ignore inflation worries](. - California has [lower taxes than Texas](. Bitcoin Bubble Bursts, Bounces Back Maybe we should change Bitcoin’s name to MuskCoin and be done with it. For one thing, its [fortunes]( rise and fall with Elon Musk’s moods. He drove the cryptocurrency to nearly $65,000 earlier this year when Tesla — the electric-car company he runs as a [side gig]( to his day job of being pathologically online — revealed it would take Bitcoins in trade and [HODL]( Bitcoins and just generally be all about Bitcoins. Then he wrecked Bitcoin’s price by saying, oops, never mind, friendship ended with Bitcoin. But today, as the BitSelloff became a BitBloodbath, he raised this flag of solidarity: For the uninitiated, these symbols mean the publicly traded company Tesla — which has a board of directors that is apparently trapped in a collapsed hyperloop tunnel somewhere — is clinging to its Bitcoin investment for dear life, no matter how economically foolish. Crash boom bang, a 31% [collapse]( turned into a 33% rally. Which brings us to the other way Bitcoin should really be MuskCoin: Just like Elon Musk, the cryptocurrency is exhaustingly, dangerously volatile. This makes it [a phenomenal new mechanical bull for professional traders to ride](, Mark Gilbert and Lionel Laurent point out. What it does not make Bitcoin is: - a store of value - the future of money - any of the other lofty things its promoters claim it is. Maybe someday you’ll at least be able to buy [Bitcoin pizza]( with it. But that would probably be a bad idea, as you have no idea whether the Bitcoin you spend will be worth $60,000 or $30,000 or $0 by the time the pizza is delivered. Musk only knows. Paid Post Importing spreadsheet data shouldn't require messy CSV templates or expensive services teams. [Flatfile's intuitive data import]( wizard guides users to import even the messiest data, securely, and with confidence. No Excel formatting, no custom import scripts, and no need to build vs. buy. [Get a demo]( The GOP’s Leadership Vacuum Elon Musk’s tweets have at least filled the void in our lives once occupied by Donald Trump’s tweets. You can go whole weeks now without thinking about the 45th president at all. But prosecutors in New York City and New York state still think about him every day, specifically the crimes he may have committed. New York’s attorney general has recently turned her civil probe of Trump’s businesses into a criminal one and joined forces with Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance. This is an almost unheard-of pairing, writes Tim O’Brien, like the [Fluff Screamer](, and [suggests the former president and his business practices are in deep trouble]( indeed.      And yet despite his vast legal peril and political failings, Trump continues to be the face of the Republican Party. At the risk of triggering memories from 2017: This is not normal! Typical political parties send their scandal-plagued losers to a [nice family farm]( upstate. Today’s [GOP keeps making poster children out of them](, writes Jonathan Bernstein. From Matt Gaetz to Marjorie Taylor Greene, the base [loves]( those politicians. But it’s also a shrinking base.  Inflation Watch! The other thing Bitcoin is not is an inflation hedge. Otherwise, it might not be crashing even as other [markets quietly lose their minds over the prospect of inflation](, as Mohamed El-Erian says they’re doing. Wall Street fears the Fed will let inflation get out of control and have to crush the economy to fight it, Mohamed writes. John Authers agrees this is [the trendy new tail risk](. But the Fed’s ignoring these inflation worriers precisely because [it has listened to them too much in the recent past](, hurting the economy as a result, Dan Moss writes. Mohamed suggests the ECB might tighten policy before the Fed, just to further expose its woeful disconnection from reality. But the ECB’s latest Financial Stability Review details [a host of threats that should keep hawks from squawking](, Marcus Ashworth writes. The hallmark of this pandemic and its attendant economic disaster has been surprise. Today’s inflation panic vanishing like so much Bitcoin froth would be fitting. Telltale Charts California may be chasing away rich people with high tax rates, but lower- and [middle-income people are fleeing faster, including to higher-tax states](, notes Justin Fox. Maybe some people don’t respond to tax rates at all but to massive rent costs. Starved for chips, U.S. [automakers are demanding an annual quota of semiconductors](. But Brooke Sutherland and Tae Kim argue this would be unfair and wouldn’t make business sense anyway, given how quickly their needs change. Further Reading The [Pentagon is right to take UFOs seriously](, as they pose a national security threat by harassing planes. — Bloomberg’s editorial board An [infrastructure plan knitting together eastern European countries]( could help Europe deflect Russian and Chinese influence. — Andreas Kluth The [IEA has changed its tune on oil and gas spending](. Will Exxon and BlackRock follow? — Liam Denning We should [collect and study data on other vaccine side effects]( besides blood clots. — Faye Flam [Recycled wastewater will become increasingly necessary]( as climate change makes droughts worse. — Amanda Little ICYMI Europe will [let vaccinated people from safe countries travel]( quarantine-free. Lumber [isn’t housing’s worst supply problem](. Antarctica just [lost a Majorca-sized iceberg](. Kickers Area [kindergartners foil a school bus hijacking](. (h/t Scott Kominers) Nassim Nicholas [Taleb has thoughts on books](. [Bullshitting is a sign of intelligence](, a study has shown. There are [65 species that “laugh](.” How the [Pentagon started taking UFOs seriously](. Notes: Please send book reviews and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Twitter]( and [Facebook](.  Like Bloomberg Opinion Today? [Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more](. 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