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That didn’t last long – Tesla no longer accepts Bitcoin

Back in February Tesla sent the price of Bitcoin skyward after it purchased $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency.

While we’d love to compare Elon Musk to Smaug and say this Bitcoin was just an addition to his treasure room (it’s a VR room of course), Tesla aimed to accept Bitcoin for purchases.

But Tesla is no longer accepting Bitcoin for purchases. The reason has nothing to do with the cryptocurrency’s volatility either.

“We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which as the worst emissions of any fuel,” Tesla wrote in a statement shared by Musk on Twitter.

“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,” the firm added.

You may be aware of the University of Cambridge’s Centre of Alternative Finance and its Bitcoin network power tracker which estimates how much power the Bitcoin network is using.

At most recent estimates Bitcoin is using 149.63 terawatt hours per year which is higher than the energy used by Malaysia or Sweden.

Unfortunately, much of the world’s electricity is still generated from fossil fuel and while there are efforts within the cryptocurrency sector to move to renewables, that only really addresses the power problem and not the hardware one.

Once a mining rig is no longer profitable it gets chucked in the bin because it can’t be sold as nobody is buying unprofitable miners. While some of those parts can be rescued for recycling, there is still a lot of e-waste being created by Bitcoin.

With all of this in mind it’s a surprise that Tesla, the company trying to be kinder to the environment, purchased Bitcoin in the first place.

As for what Tesla is going to do with the Bitcoin it purchased, it’s using the HODL strategy it seems.

“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 percent of Bitcoin’s energy/transaction,” Tesla concluded.

As for what those other currencies could be, just take a guess.

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