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Elon Musk criticized for suspending bitcoin payment option for Tesla. - Chaintimes.com

source-logo  chaintimes.com 13 May 2021 09:44, UTC

Elon Musk announced that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin for payment of its electric cars at Tesla, which did not sit well with many Twitter followers of the CEO. Tesla said back in March that it would begin accepting Bitcoin for payment of its EVs when it also made a $1.5 billion investment into the cryptocurrency. The investment paid off for the electric carmaker, which reported a $2.5 billion boost from bitcoin at the end of March 2021 in a securities and exchange filing. 

Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021

Tesla suspends bitcoin payment option because of environmental reasons. 

Elon Musk took a u-turn on the Bitcoin promise, saying that it uses too much of the environment’s energy to mine. Bitcoin uses purpose-built computers that utilize energy to solve mathematical equations to allow Bitcoin transactions to be processed. According to CNBC, Bitcoin’s energy consumption is considered larger than the use of some individual countries. Upon the news from Musk, Bitcoin plunged about 12% to $49,624. At the time of writing, BTC is trading just above $50,000. 

Wow, you change your mind faster than a chameleon changes colors. Surely this should be considered before accepting it in the first place.

Anyway, proof of stake is a great option (coins like $ADA, $DOT etc) 🙂

— Aleksandra Huk (@HukAleksandra) May 12, 2021

Tesla would retain its bitcoin holdings. 

In his Twitter post, Elon Musk said in part, “Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. We are concerned about the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transaction, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.” Tesla CEO continued in the post by saying that while Tesla believes that “cryptocurrency is a good idea” it “cannot come at great cost to the environment.” Though Tesla has ended bitcoin payment, the company would continue to retain its massive bitcoin holdings and would use for transactions as soon as mining of the currency moves to “more sustainable energy.”

Market manipulation at its finest pic.twitter.com/0WLcnP912f

— Crypto Tony (@CryptoTony__) May 13, 2021

chaintimes.com