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Bitcoin price plunges after Elon Musk pulls support, citing environmental concerns
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The price of bitcoin plunged Wednesday after Tesla Inc. founder and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said the electric car maker will no longer accept the cryptocurrency as a payment option.
The backflip was two months in the making after Telsa announced it had invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin in February and that it would start accepting bitcoin as a payment option. The announcement, made by Musk (pictured) today on Twitter, cited environmental concerns for the decision to drop bitcoin support.
“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,” Musk wrote. “Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment.”