Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk fired up the tweet machine and the cryptocurrency market jumped on board for another wild ride.
After his concerns for the environment caused his decision to abandon the plan for Tesla’s bitcoin transactions, Musk now has qualified and amended the idea.
He said his company will resume allowing bitcoin transactions – with proof of more environmentally friendly mining.
“When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50 percent) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions,” he said in a tweet on Sunday.
Bitcoin surged 9.8 percent to $39,035.47 on Sunday, adding $3,492.71 to its previous close. It was up to $40,663 by midday on Monday.
According to an Al Jazeera report:
“Musk’s post was in reply to a report in Cointelegraph, which cited Magda Wierzycka, executive chair of South African asset manager Sygnia, as saying Musk’s recent tweets on Bitcoin should have prompted an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.”
Tesla had accepted bitcoin transactions from late in March to early May, but Musk cited the mining’s high environmental cost and suspended those transactions.
But any indication, up or down, from Musk has caused crypto swings in the market. And it’s not just bitcoin. Early on Monday, Ethereum was up more than 7.7 percent, according to Coinbase, while dogecoin was up about 5 percent.
Jonathan Cheesman, head of over-the-counter and institutional sales at crypto derivatives exchange FTX, said in the Al Jazeera story that Musk’s tweet only solidified bitcoin’s increasing value.
“The rally was already under way as the market speculates about an imminent purchase from MicroStrategy and the G-7 comments on crypto were neutral,” he said, “even optimistic, about digital innovation.”
Musk did not offer details on how he would designate clean-energy demands.
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