A late tweet from Elon Musk sent Bitcoin prices into freefall. Elon Musk decided that the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining has become too significant, his tweet was a major reversal for Tesla. Musk’s decision for Tesla to suspend acceptance of Bitcoin as payment for a car is a big hit for mainstream acceptance.
The environmental impact from mining Bitcoins was one of the biggest risks for the entire crypto market. Over the past couple of months, everyone disregarded news that Bitcoin uses more electricity than Argentina and Norway. Elon Musk’s tweet is Tesla getting ahead of the ESG movement. Shockingly, this did not become a bigger story until now. Bitcoin is in the danger zone and now everyone is scrambling to see which cryptocurrencies have the lowest energy transactions. Some buyers emerged on Bitcoin’s break of the $47,000 level, but I wouldn’t be surprised if sellers remained in control over the short-term.