The most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC), recovered some of its sharp losses, fueled by Tesla’s supremo Elon Musk as the car manufacturer said it has suspended vehicle purchases using BTC and is looking at other crypto assets.
BTC plunged from almost USD 55,000 to USD 47,600, before recovering higher again and fluctuating around USD 50,000. At 03:36 UTC, it trades at USD 49,958 and is down by 13% in a day. Other coins from the top 10 club have also followed a similar path and are now down by 8%-18% in the past 24 hours.
“We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transaction especially coal, which was the worst emissions of any fuel,” according to a screenshot, shared by Musk on Twitter.
It added the company still believes cryptocurrency is a good idea and has a promising future, “but this cannot come at great cost to the environment.”
Tesla said it won’t be selling any BTC it holds and intends to use it for transactions “as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.”
However, in April, Musk agreed that BTC “incentivizes renewable energy.”
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— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2021
Some commenters speculate that this decision to suspend BTC payments might be related to subsidies Tesla is receiving from the US government.
“We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use <1% of Bitcoin’s energy/transaction,” they concluded. This week, Musk asked his Twitter followers, whether the company should start accepting dogecoin (DOGE).
Tesla started accepting BTC in March this year.
(Photo : AtozMarket)
