Tesla Stops Selling Electric Vehicles for Bitcoin | Economic news from Germany | >

American electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla has suspended accepting bitcoins as a means of payment due to the unfriendly way of receiving this cryptocurrency. “Tesla has suspended its acquisition of vehicles using Bitcoin. We are concerned about the rapidly growing use of fossil fuels, especially coal, which has the worst emissions, for mining and Bitcoin operations,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk explained his decision in his Twitter microblog on Wednesday evening. , 12 May.

According to Musk, “cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels” with a “promising future”, but the company cannot afford to harm the environment. In this regard, Tesla will also not sell bitcoins and use them for operations until the mining of cryptocurrency is carried out using “sustainable energy sources”, the businessman added.

Against the background of the Tesla message, the cost of bitcoin fell by more than 15 percent to $ 46.2 thousand, follows from the data of the CoinDesk portal. By 3:45 am Moscow time, the rate rose to $ 50 thousand per coin. At 8:15 Moscow time, according to Coinmarketcap, for one bitcoin on the exchanges was offered $ 50,848, which is 11.43% lower than the day before.

The new collapse of bitcoin occurred against the background of the already noticeably declining rate of this and other cryptocurrencies due to harsh criticism about the high energy consumption for mining – the process of extracting electronic money, cryptocurrency, using calculations on special computers that are connected by a network, a blockchain.

Selling for bitcoins

Tesla authorized the sale of electric vehicles for bitcoins on March 24. This payment method became available only to customers in the United States, in other countries it was planned to be introduced later this year. Musk noted that the company will not convert the received cryptocurrency into fiat money.

In early February, Tesla bought $ 1.5 billion worth of bitcoins. The company said it invested in this cryptocurrency for “more flexibility in further diversification and increased profit from cash.” Musk later called this decision recklessness. Tesla’s actions do not directly reflect his views, he said, but bitcoin is “just a less stupid form of liquidity than cash savings.”

See also:

• What is bitcoin and how does it work

  Bitcoin is the leading cryptocurrency

  Bitcoin is the world’s most popular cryptocurrency. It has no denominations, it is impossible to touch it, as it is completely based on cryptographic methods. Its most important principle is complete decentralization, it does not have a central administrator, it does not obey financial regulators and banks. This makes Bitcoin radically different from any payment unit in the world.

• 

  What is bitcoin and how does it work

  Bitcoin’s mystical founding father

  For the first time they started talking about bitcoin after in October 2008 an anonymous developer (or a group of developers) under the name Satoshi Nakamoto published a file describing the protocol and how the payment system works. In January 2009, the world’s first 50 bitcoins were generated.

• 

  What is bitcoin and how does it work

  How do I get bitcoins?

  There are several ways to get bitcoins. The easiest one is to buy cryptocurrency on one of the Internet platforms for ordinary money, for example, euros. You can accept bitcoins as payment for your services or goods. Finally, you can learn the mining procedure and get bitcoins for it.

• 

  What is bitcoin and how does it work

  A wallet is also needed for bitcoin

  Cryptocurrencies are stored in electronic wallets (Wallet). More precisely, electronic keys are stored there, which are proof of the legitimacy of bitcoins belonging to their owner. Wallets can be located on computers, smartphones, USB sticks, cloud storage, and so on. The main thing is the reliability of storage, since with the loss of keys, the loss of bitcoins also occurs.

• 

  What is bitcoin and how does it work

  Chairs first, then money (bitcoins)

  Here is an example of a Bitcoin transaction. The buyer (in the picture on the left) is going to purchase a product from the seller – for example, a hat. Both require a public and private key to complete a transaction. The public key can be compared with the bank account number, the private key with the secret code for confirming a bank transaction.

• 

  What is bitcoin and how does it work

  What does blockchain have to do with it?

  The seller presents the public key to the buyer. He, in turn, confirms the payment with his private key and thus begins the process of sending money. Computer information about this transaction, together with hundreds of other transactions, forms a special structure – a “block”, which is attached to a chain of other blocks containing data from other previous transactions.

• 

  What is bitcoin and how does it work

  What miners do

  This new block with information about the payment for the hat will soon appear on all computers of the participants in the cryptocurrency system. They are also called miners. Their computers validate and validate block transactions. In theory, anyone can become a miner, but in practice today this role is played by professional miners with powerful server hardware.

• 

  What is bitcoin and how does it work

  Mining: speed competition

  Before finally confirming a transaction (like paying for a hat), miners have to validate it, which requires huge server and graphics card processing power. In fact, miners participate in a kind of speed competition: whoever verifies a block with information first will receive bitcoins for this.

• 

  What is bitcoin and how does it work

  Blockchain: anonymous blockchain

  As a result, the block with the “packed” and verified information about the payment for the hat becomes part of a long chain of blocks – the blockchain. This chain contains all Bitcoin transactions that have taken place. In this open “ledger” you can find all transactions and wallets of all participants – however, all participants in the settlement remain anonymous.

• 

  What is bitcoin and how does it work

  Where do miners live

  The world’s largest mining capacity – and the highest energy consumption for this purpose – is in China today. So say researchers from the University of Cambridge, the authors of the Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index. Next on the list are the United States, Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran and Malaysia. Mining is most profitable where electricity prices are low.

• 

  What is bitcoin and how does it work

  Huge electricity consumption for mining

  Scientists at the University of Cambridge estimate the total electricity consumption for mining at 120 TWh (terawatt-hour) per year. That’s more than each of the blue-colored countries in the map above consumes annually.

  Author: Goodrun Haupt

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