Bitcoin value drops as Tesla stops accepting the cryptocurrency as a form of payment
Bitcoin value has seen a decline on Wednesday which led to approximately $365 billion disappear from the cryptocurrency market. Apparently, a tweet by Elon Musk led to this situation where he announced that Tesla would no longer accept bitcoin as a form of alternative payment.
Tesla Tecnoking cited environmental concerns and said that Tesla “concerned about 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,” he added.
Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021
However, Musk added that Tesla will not sell its bitcoins as of now and will continue to use them for transactions “as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.” He also talks about adopting alternative cryptocurrencies that use <1% of Bitcoin's energy.
In February, Musk announced that Tesla had invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin and said the company would start accepting bitcoin payments soon. He soon made Bitcoin an official payment option at the end of March and announced it through a tweet.
Since then, Elon has faced a lot of criticism regarding his decision from various other tech giants and environmental advocates. Nevertheless, Bitcoin saw a steady rise in its value only to dip again Wednesday as a reaction to Elon's tweet.