Elon Musk, the head of US electric-car maker Tesla, has made an unexpected announcement that Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for its cars due to climate change concerns.
Indeed, cryptocurrency mining operations require high energy consumption, which in turn has a negative environmental impact. In his tweet, Elon Musk said that Tesla had suspended accepting BTC as a payment method for its vehicles. The company would retain its bitcoin holdings and "use the cryptocurrency as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy sources". "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," the billionaire added.
"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 said in a tweet.
Notably, early this year, Elon Musk posted a tweet that stirred up the cryptocurrency market, driving a surge in bitcoin. In February, Tesla invested $1.5 billion in BTC. In late April, it became known that the company had made over $100 million from that investment. Later, the company allowed US consumers to buy its electric vehicles with bitcoin.
