Musk says Tesla sold about 10% of bitcoin to test market, and will ‘resume allowing crypto transactions’ when 50% of miners use clean energy
Prices of the world’s No. 1 crypto on Sunday were trading sharply higher, as digital-asset bull Elon Musk said Tesla would resume allowing transactions at the vehicle-maker’s stores when key members of bitcoin infrastructure can confirm that 50% of the energy used to mine for bitcoin is derived from clean energy sources.
The Sunday afternoon tweet from the CEO of Tesla was a part of an exchange where Musk, in apparent reply to a Twitter missive referencing a CoinTelegraph article accusing the technofile of “Bitcoin pump and dump,” said that the company retains a chunk of its $1.5 billion initial investment in crypto but sold approximately 10% “to confirm [bitcoin] could be liquidated easily without moving the market.”
Musk has become a prominent and influential crypto voice, whose tweet in May, saying that Tesla would no longer accept bitcoin as payment for its vehicles, citing the large carbon footprint of digitally mining for bitcoin BTCUSD,
A often-cited University of Cambridge index pegs the yearly power consumption of bitcoin mining at around 99 terawatt-hours, more than the power usage of the Philippines or Pakistan.
A number of Musk’s recent tweets also have sparked in the crypto community a mix of ebullience, confusion, apprehension and, at times, dread. Earlier this month, investors attempted to parse an enigmatic tweet from the SpaceX that included a bitcoin symbol and a broken-heart emojii.
His social-media missives have had outsize influence on the prices of dogecoin DOGEUSD,
At last check Sunday afternoon, bitcoin prices were up nearly 8%, changing hands at $38,808.09 on CoinDesk. Bitcoin has gained over 28% in the year to date but is about 40% down from its mid April peak at $64,829.14. The world’s No. 2 crypto, Ether ETHUSD,
Back in February, Tesla revealed that it acquired some $1.5 billion in bitcoin in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
MarketWatch’s sister publication Barron’s estimates that Tesla paid about $38,000 per bitcoin, basing that value on the average price of the asset between Tesla’s fourth-quarter conference call on Jan. 27, where it didn’t mention any bitcoin holdings, and the filing date.
In general, prices of digital assets like bitcoin are outperforming traditional markets.
On Friday, the S&P 500 index SPX,
