Tesla Inc. has suspended Bitcoin payments for its electric vehicles, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk announced on Twitter.
Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021
- Musk said the suspension comes amid concerns of fossil fuel use for Bitcoin mining, saying benefits should not come at a great cost to the environment.
- Tesla will keep its Bitcoin holdings, which it plans to use for transactions when mining is done sustainably.
- Musk said Tesla is also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use less than 1% of Bitcoin’s energy.
- “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,” he said.
- Tesla was among the first major firms to invest in the crypto space after acquiring $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in February.
- Data from Coinmarketcap.com showed that prior to Musk’s tweet, the market capitalization of the cryptocurrency stood at $2.43 trillion.
- Following Musk’s announcement, capitalization dropped to $2.06 trillion to reflect a loss of $365.85 billion.
- Bitcoin was down 10.99% to $50,025.45; Ethereum down 12.08% to $3,759.31; and XRP down 10.25% to $1.30 at 12:40 GMT according to Coindesk.com
TSLA:Nasdaq is up 1.86% premarket.