It was hailed as a victory for environmentalists.
On Wednesday, Elon Musk said his company Tesla would stop accepting vehicle purchases using Bitcoin due to climate change concerns. The dramatic reversal by the world’s second-richest man wiped $8,000 off the price of Bitcoin, which fell from close to $55,000 to $47,000 in just two hours.
“It is better late than never,” says Alex de Vries, of Digiconomist, which analyses the carbon footprint of cryptocurrency. “Bitcoin mining is a dirty business, and if you are a company selling electric vehicles, it is weird to enable a currency with a substantial carbon footprint.”
That sentiment has been gaining traction in the corporate world. Ben Dear, chief executive of Osmosis Investment Management, believes Musk’s about-turn will “put pressure companies moving forward to think twice about the consequences before accepting it as a form of payment”.
by Bhaswati Guha Majumder - May 14, 2021 05:25 AM
SpaceX, Tesla and Neuralink co-founder Elon Musk. (Mark Brake/Getty Images)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that the company will suspend the use of Bitcoin for the purchase of vehicles, citing environmental issues related to the cryptocurrency.
The billionaire wrote on Twitter: We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.
Following this announcement, the price of Bitcoin plunged by more than 11 per cent.
In February 2021, Tesla announced that it would start accepting Bitcoins as a payment mode for its electric vehicles.
Elon Musk TV
Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk on Thursday denounced the insane amount of energy used to produce bitcoin, doubling down on his sudden rejection of the cryptocurrency as a means of payment over environmental concerns.
Musk, one of bitcoin s most ardent backers, tweeted a graph of bitcoin s power consumption and said: Energy usage trend over past few months is insane. (https://bit.ly/33BYV8Z)
That followed his tweet from Wednesday saying Tesla would no longer accept the cryptocurrency as payment for its electric cars because it came at a great cost to the environment, an about-face from his stance in March.
Musk decries bitcoin s insane energy use after Tesla payment U-turn
By Hyunjoo Jin and Subrat Patnaik
Reuters
(Reuters) -Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk on Thursday denounced the insane amount of energy used to produce bitcoin, doubling down on his sudden rejection of the cryptocurrency as a means of payment over environmental concerns.
Musk, one of bitcoin s most ardent backers, tweeted a graph of bitcoin s power consumption and said: Energy usage trend over past few months is insane. (https://bit.ly/33BYV8Z)
That followed his tweet from Wednesday saying Tesla would no longer accept the cryptocurrency as payment for its electric cars because it came at a great cost to the environment, an about-face from his stance in March.