In brief
- Elon Musk has said Tesla will stop accepting Bitcoin over concerns about the cryptocurrency’s carbon footprint.
- Before yesterday’s announcement, Musk had repeatedly praised the cryptocurrency.
- Just three months ago, Tesla invested $1.5 billion into Bitcoin.
Recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent shockwaves around the crypto world with his declaration that the EV maker will at this point don’t acknowledge Bitcoin installments, because of worries over its natural effect.
“We are worried about quickly expanding utilization of petroleum products for Bitcoin mining and exchanges, particularly coal, which has the most noticeably awful emanations of any fuel,” the Tesla CEO said in a tweet, adding that Bitcoin’s new energy utilization is “crazy.
Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021
In his tweet, Musk reaffirmed his confidence in digital forms of money as “something worth being thankful for” and declared that Tesla is taking a gander at other cryptographic forms of money that utilization under 1% of Bitcoin’s energy per exchange.
In the course of the most recent seven years, Musk’s situation on Bitcoin has moved from interest to full-scale appropriation—settling on his choice a stun to Bitcoin advocates, a significant number of whom have become used to having Musk as one of their most compelling patrons.
Elon Musk’s set of experiences with Bitcoin
Musk’s set of experiences with Bitcoin returns similarly as March 2014; asked by a Twitter client for his position on digital currencies, he answered with the subtle assertion, “All things considered, since Satoshi Nakamoto has been found, I get it is case shut.”
Soon thereafter, at Vanity Fair’s New Establishment Summit, questioner Walter Isaacson had the option to nail Musk down, requesting his assessment on Bitcoin. Musk reacted that Bitcoin was “presumably something to be thankful for,” with the admonition that “it’s basically going to be a method for doing unlawful exchanges.”
He likewise noticed that he didn’t by and by hold any Bitcoin.
But it was some time before the Tesla CEO began to seriously pay attention to Bitcoin. In 2017, he took to Twitter to dismiss rumors that he was the inventor of Bitcoin, noting that “A friend sent me part of a BTC a few years, but I don’t know where it is,” and posting the occasional joking reference to the idea that he might be Satoshi Nakamoto.
In 2019, the first signs of a shift in his position emerged when he appeared on a podcast with tech investment company ARK Invest. He described Bitcoin as “quite brilliant,” adding that “paper money is going away, and crypto is a far better way to transfer value than pieces of paper, that’s for sure.”
In May 2020, Musk responded to a tweet from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, saying that, “massive currency issuance by government central banks is making Bitcoin Internet money look solid by comparison.”
A month later, Musk was one of a number of world-famous figures whose identity was borrowed by crypto scammers, the latest in a series of long-running scams. The viral crypto fraud raked in about $2 million in just two months.
But that proved to be just a bump in the road, with Musk continuing to voice his support for the flagship cryptocurrency. In December 2020, Musk was at it again. He briefly tweeted that Bitcoin was his “safe word,” before clarifying that he was “just kidding.”
Shortly afterward, he shared a risqué meme suggesting that he was tempted by the cryptocurrency.
At this point, the crypto world had well and truly embraced the Tesla CEO as one of Bitcoin’s biggest influencers.
But not so fast. Apparently, the only thing more volatile than Bitcoin’s price is Musk’s stance on the cryptocurrency.
Elon Musk u-turns on Bitcoin
Musk has dealt a potentially fatal blow to his image as one of Bitcoin’s biggest advocates.
After Musk posted his tweet citing concerns about Bitcoin’s impact on the environment, Bitcoiners who’d previously sung his praises rushed to criticize him—including Saylor, and Anthony Pompliano, who argued that Bitcoin derives 75% of its power from renewable energy.
Jason Deane, the Bitcoin analyst at Quantum Economics, told Decrypt that Musk’s thinking is “flawed.” “It is true that Bitcoin uses considerable power, but then so does the dollar—which he is still accepting—and a myriad of other industries including his own manufacturing facilities,” Deane added.
Musk may have concluded that Tesla cannot produce electric cars with one hand and support an environmentally damaging cryptocurrency with the other; however, per his announcement, the automaker will not divest itself of its Bitcoin holdings.
In any case, with Musk having toppled from his lofty position of influence among the Bitcoin faithful, the notoriously fickle community will be on the hunt for a new celebrity A-list influencer.
They may not need to look very far. Earlier this week, billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg introduced the world to his goats, Max and Bitcoin.
