Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin, citing concerns over the cryptocurrency’s effect on the climate, the company’s CEO Elon Musk revealed yesterday on Twitter.
Giving reasons yesterday, Musk said; ‘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,’
Bitcoin, the world’s biggest digital currency by market capitalisation, fell nearly 8 percent after the tweet according to data from cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
Read Also: Bitcoin’s Stake Rises As Musk’s Tesla Buys $1.5bn Of Crypto
‘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,‘ Musk wrote.
The Tesla and SpaceX chief is a fervent supporter of cryptocurrencies and has inspired big market-moving swings in the prices of digital coins this year, including Bitcoin and Dogecoin.
In January, Bitcoin surged when Musk posted #bitcoin to his Twitter feed. His Midas crypto touch was unleashed again in February after Tesla disclosed in regulatory filings that it had bought $1.5bn of Bitcoin and that people could use the cryptocurrency to buy Tesla’s electric vehicles.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK