Tesla has stopped accepting Bitcoin payments after roughly three months, citing environmental concerns.
A tweet from Elon Musk states that the crypto king’s company has suspended Bitcoin purchases over concerns about “the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions.”
He reiterates his support for cryptocurrency and says that he still believes it has a promising future, but he worries about the cost to the environment.
Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021
At the end of his tweet, Musk says that Tesla won’t be selling the Bitcoin it currently owns and will hold it until mining is more environmentally sensitive. Tesla is looking into cryptocurrencies that use less than one percent of the energy that Bitcoin transactions make.
Earlier today, Musk tweeted a poll asking if Tesla should accept Dogecoin for payments. Tesla first started accepting Bitcoin after making a $1.5 billion USD (roughly $1.9 billion CAD) investment in the cryptocurrency in early February 2021.
Source: @elonmusk