Following the announcement of Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk that the company will stop accepting Bitcoin (BTC) as payment, the cryptocurrency market lost hundreds of billions of dollars.
According to CoinMarketCap, when Musk posted about the development on his Twitter account, the whole crypto market was valued at around $2.43 trillion. Almost three hours after the announcement, market capitalization stood at $2.06 trillion, or $365.85 billion lower.
Since then, the market trimmed its losses to $235 billion, but bitcoin went down by 12% to be at around $49,624, falling below the $50K mark for the first time since April 24.
A change of heart
Last February, Tesla announced its purchase of $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and its plans to accept the cryptocurrency as payment for its electric cars.
Now, Musk changed his mind, citing environmental issues related to bitcoin mining as the reason why he’s considering halting Tesla’s acceptance of the crypto as payment for its products.
On his Twitter post, the billionaire said they were concerned about the “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.” He pointed out that despite believing in the potentials of the new asset class, it shouldn’t come at a great cost for the environment.
Still pro-Bitcoin
Despite the announcement that set Twitter on fire, Musk still remains a big proponent of digital currencies, especially bitcoin and dogecoin.
Moreover, the Tesla top honcho assured the company wouldn’t sell any of its bitcoin holdings as it plans to hold on to them and put them to use once mining “transitions to a more sustainable energy.”
Meanwhile, Musk hasn’t made a follow-up on his tweet asking his followers if they would want Tesla to offer another cryptocurrency in dogecoin as a payment option for their cars.
Image courtesy of Cointelegraph News/YouTube
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Source: https://bitcoinerx.com/blockchain/crypto-market-loses-hundreds-of-billions-as-tesla-halts-acceptance-of-bitcoin-payment/
