Elon Musk stated that Tesla will accept payments in the form of cryptocurrency when there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage.
Elon Musk, CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla, disclosed on Sunday that the US company will accept bitcoin payments again when the virtual currency becomes greener.
Bitcoins are created through heavy energy process that consumes vast amounts of electrical power that could harm the environment
In February, Tesla announced that customers could pay in cryptocurrency, a payment option that became possible at the end of March.
But then Musk changed his mind, indicating that bitcoin was no longer accepted — in the interest of protecting the environment.
“When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with a positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions,” the billionaire wrote on Twitter Sunday.
The science journal Nature recently published a study showing that China’s bitcoin miners, which power nearly 80 per cent of the world’s cryptocurrency trade and run in part from coal-fired power plants, risk jeopardizing the country’s climate goals.
Musk on Sunday reacted to an article raising the possibility that with his tweets, which regularly move the value of bitcoin in one direction or another, he is manipulating market prices for the benefit of his business.
“This is inaccurate,” he said. “Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving the market.
The US automaker announced in early February that it had invested $ 1.5 billion of its ample cash in bitcoin and has since sold part of it.
