Bitcoin slides after Elon Musk tweets climate concerns, suspends Tesla payment acceptance: CNBC After Hours

Hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped off the entire cryptocurrency market after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the electric vehicle maker would suspend car purchases using bitcoin.

At around 6 p.m. ET on Wednesday when Musk made the announcement, the value of the whole cryptocurrency market stood at around $2.43 trillion, according to data from Coinmarketcap.com. By 8:45 p.m., the market capitalization had dropped to around $2.06 trillion, wiping off around $365.85 billion.

The market has since pared some losses, and by around 8:30 a.m. the cryptocurrency market had seen around $180 billion wiped off its value since Musk’s tweet. Bitcoin was down roughly 7% at around $50,228, according to Coin Metrics data, after dipping below the $50,000 mark for the first time since Apr. 24.

Companies paid much higher prices to producers in April for everything from steel to meat in another sign of inflation in an economy rapidly recovering from the pandemic. The new data comes a day after a sharp gain in consumer prices sent the stock market reeling.

The Producer Price Index rose 0.6% from March, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Year over year, the PPI spiked 6.2%, the largest increase since the agency started tracking the data in 2010.

Economists polled by FactSet were expecting a 0.3% monthly increase in April and 3.8% year over year.

Colonial Pipeline paid a ransom to hackers after the company fell victim to a sweeping cyberattack, one source familiar with the situation confirmed to CNBC.

A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed to NBC News that Colonial paid nearly $5 million as a ransom to the cybercriminals.

It was not immediately clear when the transaction took place. Colonial Pipeline did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. The ransom payment was first reported by Bloomberg.