Crypto market tumbles as Elon Musk’s Tesla suspends Bitcoin payment option

The cryptocurrency market plunged Thursday morning, after Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla, announced that the electric carmaker has suspended bitcoin payment option.

In March, Tesla had introduced bitcoin payment option for the company’s products, a month after it announced that it had invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin.

But in a tweet Wednesday, Musk said the company is looking at other cryptocurrencies that are more environmentally sustainable.

Checks by TheCable show that the prices of Bitcoin dropped more than 11 percent to $50,883.95. Etherum price declined by 12 percent to $3,753 while Doge dropped by 17.06 percent to $0.422653, according to CoinDesk data.

“Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” Musk tweeted.

“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment.

“Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy. We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use <1% of Bitcoin’s energy/transaction.”

Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021

The Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, a report by Harvard Business Review, said mining from Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum requires vast amount of energy consumption to function, posing a huge environmental threat to the Paris climate change agreement.

In Nigeria, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has continued to warn citizens against trading in cryptocurrencies. In February, it directed banks to close accounts of persons or entities involved in crypto transactions.