Tesla will stop using bitcoin as a payment method after 49 days
Tesla has stopped accepting bitcoin as a means of payment for its cars. The car manufacturer is concerned about the increasing use of fossil fuels in transactions and mining of the crypto currency.
“We are convinced that bitcoin has a promising future, but the environment should not suffer,” said Tesla CEO Elon Musk. a statement on Twitter. “From the moment the mining and transactions of bitcoin are based on renewable sources, we will use the crypto coin again.” Tesla is also investigating whether it can use other crypto coins as a means of payment that have less than one percent of bitcoins energy costs.
The company is also no longer going to sell bitcoins. During the first quarter of 2021 Tesla raised $ 101 million from the sale of bitcoin after purchasing $ 1.5 billion in Bitcoin in early February. Then it turned out that the car company wanted to accept bitcoin as a valid means of payment. That happened at the end of March and only in the United States.
After Musk’s announcement, bitcoin’s value plummeted. At the time of writing, a bitcoin is worth around 42,000 euros.