TL; DR Breakdown
- Elon Musk hints at Tesla accepting Bitcoin again
- Miners have to adopt clean energy
- BTC is responding to the news
Tesla made the news when it started accepting Bitcoin payments for its electric car sales, and founder Elon Musk was praised greatly for that supportive move. The company even went ahead to include BTC holdings in its balance sheet.
However, things went south when Elon Musk suddenly changed his stance and started bashing the top coin on Twitter. Soon after, Tesla announced that it would no longer accept BTC payments. Apparently, Elon Musk’s change of heart about Bitcoin stems from the blockchain’s intense energy consumption, something that the Tesla founder deems harmful to the environment. This was despite Tesla profiting billions of dollars from its Bitcoin holdings.
This sudden turn of events sent the crypto market, and especially the Bitcoin market, into a FUD, an atmosphere that adversely affected its price. The crypto dropped from the highs of $50k to the lows of $30k within a short time.
Tesla wants Bitcoin again
Now, Tesla seems to have changed its stance on Bitcoin, instead signaling its willingness to deal with BTC again – but certain conditions have to be met for that to happen. According to Elon, the high energy consumption by the BTC network, and especially the miners, needs to stop if the crypto is to be accepted back at Tesla.
In a tweet, Elon Musk clarified that his company only liquidated about 10% of its BTC stash to test the crypto’s liquidity. He added that Tesla will resume accepting BTC payments when miners adopt clean energy for 50% of their activities on the BTC network. It’s not yet clear when this could happen or whether Elon and Tesla have any plans to support the network in that sense.
Price up
Ever since he appeared to ditch Bitcoin, Elon Musk has been losing points within the BTC community because many see him as a market manipulator. Notably, his BTC-bashing tweets had a negative impact on its price. When he switched to supporting DOGE (Dogecoin), its price surged.
Now, it appears that his recent opinions about the possible resumption of BTC payments at Tesla are good news to the market. Bitcoin has been gaining ground over the weekend, surging from the lows of under $35k to the current price standing at around $40.6k at the time of this writing.
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