Tesla CEO Elon Musk says his electric-vehicle company will start accepting Bitcoin (BTC) payments once there’s confirmation that miners are utilizing clean energy, offering a glimmer of hope that the FUD surrounding digital assets could soon subside.
Musk responded to a Cointelegraph tweet on Friday about recent accusations from Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka, who called on the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the billionaire for allegedly manipulating Bitcoin’s price.
This is inaccurate. Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market.
When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 13, 2021
According to Wierzycka, Musk knowingly pumped the price of Bitcoin only to sell a “big part of his exposure at the peak.”
“This is inaccurate,” Musk said in response. “Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving [the] market.”
As Cointelegraph reported, Musk confirmed in April that Tesla had sold a portion of its Bitcoin holdings to prove its liquidity as an alternative to cash. Just one month earlier, the billionaire confirmed that Tesla had added $1.5 billion worth of BTC to its balance sheet. At the same time, Tesla would begin accepting BTC payments for its vehicles.
However, Tesla’s embrace of Bitcoin-as-a-payment was short-lived after Musk flagged concerns over the cryptocurrency’s energy usage. On May 12, Musk tweeted that his company would no longer accept Bitcoin payments due to the network’s “increasingly rapid use of fossil fuels…”
Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021
The Tesla CEO also laid out the conditions for Tesla to once again start accepting BTC payments:
“When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions.”
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