“I believe in Bitcoins but to buy my cars you don’t come with bitcoins but with real money” this is the synthesis of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s thinking. The eclectic entrepreneur, who has always been a major sponsor of cryptocurrencies, has decided that his electric vehicle company will stop accepting bitcoins due to their environmental impact.
A sudden decision that caused the crypto currency to drop by 12%.
Musk has announced the decision on his social profile with 54 million followers “We are concerned about the growing use of fossil fuels for the mining and transactions of bitcoin, particularly coal, which emits more than any fuel.”
Too obvious is the contradiction of selling electric cars and at the same time accepting heavily polluting bitcoin payments to buy their cars.
However, Musk is always convinced that “they are a good idea on many levels and we believe they have a promising future, but this cannot have a great cost to the environment”.
The first decision to accept Bitcoin had hypothesized a domino effect on purchases in other car manufacturers which, fortunately, did not occur.
Tesla owns more than € 1 billion in bitcoin, after investing 1.25 billion and selling 10% in a deal that generated more profits in the first quarter than selling its electric cars.
Last March, a Bank of America report confirmed that a $ 1 billion investment in bitcoin produces carbon emissions equivalent to 1.2 million cars for a full year.
The reasons why bitcoin is attributed a huge environmental impact stem from the enormous energy expenditure that crypto currency requires, with computers constantly working at full capacity.
According to the US bank, half of the bitcoins are mined in Xinjiang (China), where the source of 80% of energy is coal, one of the main culprits in the environmental destruction of the planet.