Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that the company has stopped taking Bitcoin as payment for its electronic cars. The reason being provided for this move is concern about the environmental impact.
The development is quite surprising given that the company had started accepting bitcoins as a payment method along with the traditional card payment options for its vehicles a few weeks ago, in late March.
According to the statement issued, the company would start accepting bitcoin payments once the process of mining bitcoin “transitions to more sustainable energy.” It adds that the company is also “looking at other cryptocurrencies that use <1% of Bitcoin’s energy/transaction.”
Along with this, Elon Musk has also said that the company won’t be selling any more bitcoin from the stash worth around $1.5 billion that is purchased earlier this year. For those who are unaware, Tesla sold some of those bitcoins in the first quarter of this year which helped the company’s quarterly profit figures.
Mining of cryptocurrency involves computers competing against other machines to solve complex mathematical puzzles, which is an energy-intensive process. As per one estimate, it takes up about the same amount of energy annually as the Netherlands.
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