Elon Musk, the longtime hero of cryptocurrency fans everywhere, let down his army of cryptos for the second time in less than a week on Wednesday when the Tesla boss announced that his electric car company would stop paying bitcoin payments reports the Washington Post.
Clarified on Thursday on Twitter that he still “strongly” believes in crypto but says “it cannot lead to massive increases in fossil fuel consumption, particularly coal.”
To be clear, I strongly believe in crypto, but it cannot lead to a massive spike in fossil fuel consumption, especially coal
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2021
Even so, Musk will apparently reverse its much-vaunted decision in March to swap Bitcoin for actual vehicles. He raised no concerns about the questionable intrinsic value of the quasi-tender, but said that the supercomputer processes involved in “mining” Bitcoin are currently too damaging to the environment.
“We are concerned about the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” Musk tweeted. “Tesla will not sell Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions once mining moves to more sustainable energy. We also look at other cryptocurrencies that consume <1% of Bitcoin's energy / transaction. "
Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021
The news quickly spiraled Bitcoin’s value into a spiral. Prior to Musk’s announcement on Wednesday, the cryptocash was trading at $ 54,600 per coin. It was down to $ 46,980 in two hours before rising slightly to around $ 50,000 by the end of the day.
Though Musk had previously given Bitcoin a shot in the arm when it announced in February that Tesla was investing $ 1.5 billion in the company, its social media antics have proven to be a mixed blessing for computer currencies. (One Twitter user said, “If you want the value of your currency to be tied to the volatile opinions of an already wealthy CEO and a Twitter + Reddit mob, try bitcoin!”)
Last week, the self-anointed “Dogefather” Dogecoin speculator was hoping that his stint as host of Saturday Night Live would improve that cryptocurrency because he almost promised to toss it in the air. Indeed, but he also called it a “hustle” during the “Weekend Update” and the value per coin fell 20 percent from $ 0.65 to $ 0.51 by the time the show was over.
And yet Musk continues on his cheeky ways. The day before he dropped it that bitcoin money wasn’t good near Telsa, he asked his Twitter followers if Tesla should start accepting Dogecoin. Of the 3.9 million voting users, 78.2 percent said yes.
Would you like Tesla Doge to accept?
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2021
Still, it’s strange that it would take any of the world’s leading crypto advocates so long to realize that this money was a potential natural disaster.
But Musk may have caught the episode of Real Time the week before his SNL debut, when host Bill Maher compared cryptocurrency to “the old game” I’m thinking of a number between one and ten “, except for a ton and the guy Guessing the number lives in China and the guy who knows the number lives in the matrix. “
Maher then asked: “How can a company like Tesla do everything in its power to save the planet with electric cars and then destroy it with this completely unnecessary online play money?” He also quoted Bill Gates as saying, “Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to man.”
RELATED: Dogecoin Investors Hope Crypto Elon Musk Makes Them Rich On ‘SNL’
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