Tesla is suspending their acceptance of Bitcoin as payment for a car. CEO Elon Musk tweeted the update Wednesday, citing environmental concerns about generating the cryptocurrency.
"We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions," the tweet reads.
Musk went to say that cryptocurrency is a “good idea on many levels” but its promise cannot come at a “great cost to the environment.”
In a filing with the SEC in February, Tesla said it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, and may invest in more bitcoin or cryptocurrency in the future.
It was at that time that Musk said Tesla would begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment. The announcement helped push the price of all cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and dogecoin.
Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021
The price of bitcoin fell about 5% to $51,847 after Musk’s comments on Twitter.
in response, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said the team would continue to accept bitcoin and appeared to push back on Musk's environmental concerns.
"We know that replacing Gold as a store of value will help the environment ... shrinking big bank and coin usage will benefit society and the environment," Cuban tweeted.
We at https://t.co/VUydpLFzGh will continue to accept BTC/Eth/Doge because we know that replacing Gold as a store of value will help the environment https://t.co/bs7NvnJY8A and https://t.co/ELhbuLOBRV shrinking big bank and coin usage will benefit society and the environment https://t.co/zu08F0STEQ
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) May 12, 2021
