The cryptocurrency market plunged Thursday morning, after
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla, announced that the electric carmaker
has suspended bitcoin payment option.
In March, Tesla had introduced bitcoin payment option for
the company’s products, a month after it announced that it had invested $1.5
billion in bitcoin.
But in a tweet Wednesday, Musk said the company is looking
at other cryptocurrencies that are more environmentally sustainable.
Checks by TheCable show that the prices of Bitcoin dropped
more than 11 percent to $50,883.95. Etherum price declined by 8.6 percent to
43,915 while Doge dropped by 17.06percent to $0.422653, according to CoinDesk
data.
“Tesla has suspended
vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. We are concerned about rapidly increasing use
of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has
the worst emissions of any fuel,” Musk tweeted.
“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe
it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the
environment.
“Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use
it 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.”
Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021
The Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, a report by Harvard
Business Review, said mining from Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum requires
vast amount of energy consumption to function, posing a huge environmental
threat to the Paris climate change agreement.
In Nigeria, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has continued to warn citizens against trading in cryptocurrencies. In February, it directed banks to close accounts of persons or entities involved in crypto transactions.
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