Tesla Backtracks On Accepting Bitcoin As Payment For Its Cars

Elon Musk has announced on Twitter that his car company Tesla will no longer be accepting Bitcoin as payment for its vehicles. It’s also won’t be selling any Bitcoin the company holds, as new information has become apparent to the company regarding the environmental effects caused by cryptocurrency mining. Once Bitcoins and the like are mined using more sustainable energy, the company will move back towards the use of cryptocurrency.

Due to this news from Musk, the value of the cryptocurrency fell by over 10%, with this news coming only two months after Tesla’s initial statement that they would accept Bitcoin as payment. This first statement drove Bitcoin values up by 20% as the company invested %1.5 billion into the currency, but now its value has fallen dramatically.

“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,” the Tesla CEO shared on Twitter. “Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy. We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use <1% of Bitcoin’s energy/transaction.”

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1392602041025843203

This comes after environmentalists criticised Elon’s use of Bitcoin and how it reflected on the ethos of Tesla as a company that is fighting for more sustainable transport. Estimates conclude that Bitcoin mining currently requires the same amount of energy that the Netherlands did in 2019. Strangely, despite this, Elon seems to be promoting another cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, on his Twitter, even explaining that Dogecoin will be used as payment to go on a lunar mission with SpaceX.

We’ll see how this develops in the coming months.