Bitcoin soars after Elon Musk says Tesla will resume payments when mining gets cleaner
The price of Bitcoin surged above $39,000 on Monday, a day after Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla, said the electric car company would start accepting the cryptocurrency when it’s mined with more clean energy.
In March, Tesla had introduced bitcoin payment option for the company’s products, a month after it said that it had invested $1.5 billion in the flagship cryptocurrency.
Musk announced in May that his company has suspended bitcoin payment option. He said Tesla was worried about increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions.
“Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. 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 had said.
“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.”
But in a tweet on Sunday, Musk said Tesla sold about 10% of its holdings to confirm Bitcoin could be liquidated easily without moving the market.
His post was in response to a report by Cointelegraph, which cited Magda Wierzycka, executive chair of South African asset manager Sygnia, as saying Musk’s recent tweets on Bitcoin should have prompted an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
“This is inaccurate. Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market,” his tweet reads.
“When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions.”
Cc : TheCable
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