Elon Musk is onceagain trending with his latest comments in B word conference related to thecryptocurrency. Tesla founder, Elon Musk clarified that Tesla will most likelyrestart accepting bitcoin as payment once it conducts due diligence on theamount of renewable energy used to mine the digital currency.
Musk said, "Mostlikely the answer is that Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin."
"I wanted alittle bit more due diligence to confirm that the percentage of renewableenergy usage is most likely at or above 50%, and that there is a trend towardsincreasing that number, and if so Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin"Musk said.
He further stated, "Ifthe price of bitcoin goes down I lose money. I might pump but I don'tdump," Musk said. "I definitely do not believe in getting the pricehigh and selling or anything like that. I would like to see bitcoinsucceed."
"Tesla's missionis accelerating the advent of sustainable energy. We can't be the company thatdoes that and also not do appropriate diligence on the energy usage ofbitcoin," Musk said.
Musk added that hepersonally owned bitcoin, ethereum and dogecoin, apart from bitcoin that Teslaand SpaceX owned.
After the conference,Bitcoin rose by 8 percent at $32,160.16 (roughly Rs. 23.9 lakhs), whileether surged 11.6 percent to $1,993.36 (roughly Rs. 1.4 lakhs). Tesla's shareswere down 0.8 percent at $655.30 in extended trading. Bitcoin price inIndia stood at Rs. 23.7 lakhs as of 10 am IST on July 22.
The use of bitcoin tobuy Tesla’s electric vehicles had highlighted a dichotomy between Musk’sreputation as an environmentalist and the use of his popularity and stature asone of the world’s richest people to back cryptocurrencies.
Some Tesla investors,along with environmentalists, have been increasingly critical about the waybitcoin is “mined” using vast amounts of electricity generated with fossilfuels.
More digital currencyminers, however, are making attempts to use renewable energy to mitigate theimpact on the environment.