Elon Musk and the cryptocurrencies: Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin as a payment method
Musk said crypto coins are a good idea but they cannot damage the environment.The whole crypto market has crashed after just one tweet from Elon Musk.
Tesla suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin and pointed out that the increasing use of fossil fuels for mining and transactions was the reason. He said that he still thought cryptocurrency “is a good idea on many levels”, that Tesla would use bitcoin again if its energy became cleaner, and that it would explore other digital currencies — but that for now, Tesla would switch back to only taking conventional payments.
On his Twitter account the Tesla CEO posted the following:
“Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. We are concerned about the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.
“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.
“Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to a more sustainable energy. We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use <1% of Bitcoin’s energy/transaction.”
The previous day to this announcement Elon had done a poll on his Twitter account asking folks if they wanted Tesla to accept Dogecoin. Will Dogecoin be the next trade coin for Tesla?
