On Wednesday, Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla had suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. The CEO added that the decisions were taken as the company was concerned by the increasing use of fossil fuels to mine the coins. Within five minutes of his announcement the price of the coin fell by 5 percent.
Musk also said that the automaker will hold on to its supply of bitcoin as of now. He also said that they would look at other cryptocurrencies that require less energy for transactions.
On Thursday, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who is also a huge believer in Bitcoin, said that the team will continue to accept several cryptocurrencies. According to him “replacing Gold as a store of value will help the environment.”
Earlier, Musk’s support for cryptocurrencies had led to a soar in their values and negative tweets on them lead to instant drops. This up and down fluctuations has been seen mainly with Bitcoin and Dogecoin.
About three months ago, Tesla had said that it had bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in a February Securities and Exchange (SEC) filing. It also mentioned its probable future investments in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The electric vehicle maker also said that it would accept Bitcoin as payment for its vehicles.
Earlier investors, corporate buyers, Wall Street banks and more had joined the Bitcoin bandwagon. Some of its prominent investors or banks who facilitate such operations when investments are made by their wealthy customers include the following:
- Tesla
- Square
- Metromile
- Nexon
- Goldman Sachs
- Morgan Stanley
However, the Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have a huge number of detractors as well. It can be described as a bubble waiting to burst.
Softbank founder Masayoshi Son spoke at a recent earnings conference and said that there was a lot of discussion on whether Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were a good thing or bad thing. He also mentioned that comments are being made on its true value or whether it is in a bubble. He concluded that he honestly did not know.
