Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company has stopped accepting Bitcoin for the purchase of their vehicles.
Elon Musk said Wednesday on Twitter that Tesla has “suspended vehicle purchases using bitcoin,” out of concern over “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining.”
“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at a great cost to the environment.” He added.
The announcement comes just three months after Tesla officially confirmed it had purchased $1.5 billion USD worth of Bitcoin as a part of the company’s long-term investment plan.
At that time, the company said it would start accepting bitcoin as a payment method for its products.
Support for cryptocurrency from Tesla contributed to the prices of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and dogecoin, skyrocketing in recent months.
Elon Musk said Wednesday the company doesn’t plan to sell any of the Bitcoin it acquired, as it intends to use the cryptocurrency “for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.”
“We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use < 1% of Bitcoin’s energy/transaction,” he added.
The price of bitcoin dropped about 5% in the first minutes after his announcement.
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This past weekend, the Tesla chief made his hosting debut on “Saturday Night Live” and devoted part of his opening monologue and one sketch to talking up dogecoin. Instead of helping drive up the price of the meme-inspired token, dogecoin actually tanked 30% over the course of the hour that Musk was hosting SNL.
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