American electric car and battery maker Tesla’s CEO Mr. Elon Musk has stated that the company will most likely resume accepting bitcoin payments once it conducts due diligence on the amount of renewable energy used to mine the currency.
Mr. Musk’s remarks at the B Word conference came after Tesla said in May that it will stop taking bitcoin for car purchases, less than two months after it began accepting the world’s most popular digital currency for payment.
The B Word conference is an event hosted by the Crypto Council for Innovation, an alliance of crypto industry leaders convened by Paradigm, the San Francisco-based crypto-focused investment firm.
Elon Musk Co-founder & CEO Tesla
“I wanted a little bit more due diligence to confirm that the percentage of renewable energy usage is most likely at or above 50 percent and that there is a trend towards increasing that number, and if so, Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin. Most likely the answer is that Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin. Tesla’s mission is accelerating the advent of sustainable energy. We can’t be the company that does that and also not do appropriate diligence on the energy usage of bitcoin. I might pump, but I don’t dump. I definitely do not believe in getting the price high and selling, I would like to see bitcoin succeed.”
The usage of bitcoin to purchase Tesla’s electric automobiles has highlighted a dichotomy between Musk’s reputation as an environmentalist and the use of his fame and wealth as one of the world’s wealthiest individuals to back cryptocurrencies.
Some Tesla investors and environmentalists have been increasingly critical of the way in which bitcoin is mined using large amounts of electricity generated using fossil fuels. However, more digital currency miners are attempting to employ renewable energy to reduce their environmental impact.
Mr. Musk added that, “I personally owned bitcoin, ethereum, and dogecoin, apart from bitcoin that Tesla and SpaceX owned.”
According to the reports, Bitcoin was up 8 percent at $32,160.16, while ether surged 11.6 percent to $1,993.36. Tesla’s stock was down 0.8 percent at $655.30 in extended trading.
