Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a major move on Tuesday night, saying that Tesla will no longer accept the Bitcoin cryptocurrency as a form of payment for the company’s motor vehicles.
- Musk said in a tweet: “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.”
- “Cryptocurrency is a good idea .. but this cannot come at great cost to the environment.”
Musk said Tesla will continue to use Bitcoin when the cryptocurrency becomes more environmentally friendly, according to BBC News.
Bitcoin’s value dropped by 10% after the announcement. Per BBC News, analysts said Musk did this to please investors who were concerned over Bitcoin’s impact on the environment.
Bitcoin does use a lot of energy to create since it needs a lot of energy from computers to create the currency. We have a full explainer on this that is definitely worth the read if you have the time for it. But to give you some context, one miner told the Deseret News that he could burn 1,900 watts at any given time to make Bitcoin. And reports have suggested that Bitcoin uses more energy in a year than the entire country of Argentina.
Is Musk setting up a Dogecoin surge?
The decision to cancel Bitcoin comes as Musk has been making headlines over Dogecoin. Musk has been praising cryptocurrency, which really relies on hype and social media discussion. On Tuesday, Musk released a poll that asked if Tesla should accept Doge. There were more than 3.9 million votes, with 78.2% saying “Yes.”
- Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has long called for more businesses to accept Dogecoin for purchases, which would make it a useful currency.
It would help Musk’s case that Dogecoin was recently named as one of the most environmentally-friendly cryptocurrencies, requiring only 0.12 kilowatt-hours consumed per transaction, according to a report from TRG Datacenters. Bitcoin ranked at the bottom of the list at 707 kilowatt-hours consumed per transaction.